56 THE PINE-TREE, OR 



terior in the vicinity of lumber berths, where large tracts of land 

 have been cleared up, less value is attached to, and less use 

 made of meadow hay than formerly, as English grass becomes 

 more plenty, is more available, and is much better in its quality. 



A distinguishing characteristic of this kind of business is the 

 unceasing encounter by our lumbermen with the blood-thirsty 

 millions of flies who swarm and triumph over these sanguinary 

 fields. In the use of fire-arms these unvanquishable hosts are 

 not skilled, to be sure, but in a charge they are invincible. No 

 amount of slaughter will intimidate them. Though the sweep- 

 ing hand of destruction annihilates them by thousands, still, with 

 full ranks, the contest is carried on with unabated vigor, a re- 

 spite only being afforded in rainy weather, or when high winds 

 prevail ; then they retire from the field. 



At night the musquito lancers take up the action — the Indian 

 tribes of the insect species — and all night they keep up their cease- 

 less war-whoop, as they repeat their sallies upon the weary, dis- 

 turbed sleeper. No coat of mail is proof against the attacks of 

 one species of fly commonly called the midget, which is so small 

 as to be almost imperceptible to the naked eye. The black fly 

 and the musquito can only reach the exposed parts of the body, 

 but to the midget every portion is accessible. He insinuates him- 

 self under the collar, the wristband, and through the texture of 

 the garments, and the whole region between the shirt and the 

 skin is a field for his operations. 



In one process of the haying operations, in particular, they are 

 very annoying. The hay, when cut, is carried in small cocks 

 upon two poles by two men to the scaffolding, for the purpose of 

 being stacked. While thus employed, with both hands engaged, 

 millions of these little invisibles insinuate themselves under the 

 garments, and, whatever interest or ambition may fail to do, by 

 way of producing energetic motion, the irritating smart of their 

 bite abundantly makes up. Nolens volens, the men thus em- 



