120 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



in August a number of big Horse-flies sitting in 

 the sun. I clapped my tin over one of them, but 

 so anxious was he to get away that I bruised one 

 of his wings before I could draw my handkerchief 

 tightly between him and the fence. He was big 

 and black, and his thorax was crested with a stout- 

 looking brownish shield that covered him like a 

 breast-plate put on the wrong side. He buzzed 

 like a bumble-bee when he flew, but when exam- 

 ined he was seen to differ in having no hairy body 

 but a deep-black one. It is only the female 

 Horse-flies that bite, it is said, the males, like 

 those of the Mosquito, living on the juices of 

 flowers. The insect creation serves sometimes to 

 emphasize the opinion of the ages as to woman's 

 temper. I passed a number of cows back on the 

 meadow, but the grass prevented any of them 

 from being thin enough to represent that ungal- 

 lant fiction of the French mind, the " Chichi* 

 Vache" or " sorry cow," a monster that was said 

 to be exceedingly thin. Its diet consisted of 

 good women only, and the " Chichi- Vache " was 

 all skin and bone, because its food was so ex- 

 tremely scarce, such females being very rare. 



When you raise the mosquito-bar that covers 

 the top of the fly -larvae tin, little black specks 

 fly out. These on being looked at closely resolve 

 themselves into minute flies that are hardly 

 bigger than the small black ants that visit the 

 tin. Small beetles, and, beetle-gupse of the Stapliy* 



