354 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



so did we, and it was only by constantly lubricating the 

 exposed parts of our persons with oil of tar, or oil of 

 pennyroyal, that we were enabled to stand the ordeal. 

 Fortunately, the black fly is hungry during daylight 

 only ; like a respectable citizen, he early goes to rest, 

 and equally early recommences business. 



Next come the mosquitos ; I have found the same 

 gentry troublesome in the Mediterranean, bad on the 

 Malay Peninsula, worse in the paddy-fields of China, 

 but all these lack the 'cuteness and insolence of their 

 Yankee cousins. If your hand is bare for a moment, 

 a dozen will be on it ; when up to your knees in a 

 pool, and fast in a big fish, both hands consequently 

 employed, your face and the back of your neck will 

 begin to itch to burn as if scalding water had been 

 poured over them. Nor were the sandflies deserving 

 of better character, for though so small that you can 

 scarcely perceive them, their powers of annoyance are 

 tremendous.* Thank Providence that none of these 

 wretches are made as big as the ferae, naturce, or else 

 genus homo must soon become extinct. 



I will here tell a little circumstance that befell me ; I 

 and two acquaintances were fishing under a fall ; fish 

 were abundant, but space, on account of the trees, too 

 limited for so many rods, so down the stream I started, 

 and forgot, in my desire to beat the others in results, 

 the odious preparation of oil of tar. After half an hour's 

 scrambling through brush and climbing over rocks, I 

 at length reached such a lovely pool. The first cast 

 showed it to be alive with fish, and they in the proper 

 way of thinking. Soon the gravel margin had over a 

 dozen beauties glittering in all their glorious colouring, 

 Called by the Indians " No-see-ums, " from their minuteness. 



