BURNING FLIES. 113 
-We were positively assured, that. once over 
the Cascades, there would be no mosquitos. 
If we escape the mosquitos, we are amongst 
enemies quite as formidable, the Szymuliwm or 
sand-fly, and the Tabanus or breeze-fly. Be it 
known to you, ladies, that. the males, or gentle- 
men sand-flies, brilots of the French-Canadian 
trappers, are not blood-suckers, but live on 
flowers and sip the honey in indolent enjoyment; 
what should have been the gentler sex are like 
Dahomean Amazons, the sanguinary spirits of 
the tribe. In size, the sand-fly is not nearly so 
large as the mosquito, and, instead of being a 
slim, genteel blonde Madame Brilot, is as black as 
a Guinea negress—her body is short and dumpy, 
her gauzy wings when folded nearly twice the 
length of the lady herself, and her legs somewhat 
jong and slender. Her mouth is not a loveable 
one, being a bundle of fearful lancets, the sheath 
of which forms a tube through which the blood 
is sucked after the barbed stilettoes have done 
their work: an icorous fluid is in all probability 
instilled with the puncture, hence the intense 
irritation arising from the wound. 
Where the sand-fly lays her eggs is not, I be- 
lieve, very well known, but it is more than likely 
that they are deposited on the stems of aquatic 
VOL. II. I 
