SOOTHING EFFECTS OF CLIMATE. 117 



water infested with sharks, a dozen or more of them being in 

 sight. 



A gentleman who has spent considerable time in the West 

 Indies, assured us that sharks are cautious if not cowardly, and 

 that they will never ioite a man if he splashes the water. Per- 

 haps, before trusting too much even to the warm water sharks, 

 it will be prudent to first make sure that their hunger has been 

 satisfied. When looking for his breakfast or his dinner, in the 

 absence of fish, now and then a shark may make a bold dash for 

 human flesh. The very great clearness of the Bahama waters 

 may operate in favor of safety, and the fish that they crave for 

 food may be less abundant in the colder water of the Florida 

 Gulf. If the Bahama sharks are very dangerous, it is singular 

 that so few facts are reported which indicate it, and that the 

 divers continue to be so numerous and so bold. 



In our sleeping room at Xassau, it was sometimes found nec- 

 essary to use the mosquito bars with which our bed was provided. 

 We found this insect unlike the little nocturnal musicians so 

 common at the north. When hunted upon the wall in the morn- 

 ing, a Xassau mosquito appears strangely indifferent. Often 

 when first struck at and not hit, it does not seem at all disturbed 

 and remains in the same place. Tlien when aroused sufficiently 

 to fly from the threatened danger, it makes a very short journey 

 to another resting place not far from the first, and looks around 

 with a calm quiet expression of supreme indifference. A lady 

 justly remarked — ''you don't see them sitting 'round that way 

 at home, but here they breathe a lazy atmosphere and live on 

 lazy blood." 



Little facts and circumstances evidence great truths. The 

 influence of climate may be as well shown by a mouse as by a 

 man or a mammoth. Therefore, it is, that we give another little 

 incident that came under our observation. 



