312 Transactions. — Zoology. 



most vulnerable points, I took a piece of stiff drawing-paper anclLent it over 

 my liead in the form of the old scooxD-bonnets of our grandmothers. I then 

 took a large piece of mosquito netting, and put it all over my head and face, 

 and tied it firmly round my neck below the level of where the opossum rug 

 was tacked in. In this way the netting did not inconvenience me in 

 breathing, and was kept sufficiently far off my face to prevent my enemies 

 stinging through it. For two summers I constantly lay down to sleep with 

 this paraphernalia on my head, and I can assure you if you had looked in 

 on me you would have thought me a very comical sight, but what matter 

 about that, it secured me repose. Not so, however, my poor men, who had 

 no mosquito netting. Many a night when I have happened to awake have 

 I heard them tumbling about in the adjoining tent swearing at those 

 mosquitos. And in the morning, to see them turn out haggard and weary, 

 with perhaps an eye almost closed up or cheek swollen to undue propor- 

 tions with the onslaught made on them during the night, I confess it 

 required a harder nature than mine to refrain from pitying them. Though 

 I must say they always made light of it, but then, in the early days, there 

 was a romance in everything which made men glory in difficulties and 

 discomforts, and even make fun of hunger and risk of life. I remember one 

 season on the New Eiver I had a new chum, fresh landed from the ship, as a 

 chainman. That man was such a martyr to mosquitos that he always slept 

 during the whole summer with all his clothes on him even to his very boots. 

 He suffered so much that I would have discharged him had it not been that 

 he was a first-class hand. Extraordinary though this may appear to you, 

 it can be verified, for the man is alive to this day, and can be found as a 

 successful settler not far from Invercargill. 



It may seem almost ridiculous for me to tell you that fleas, Pulex 

 irritans, were much more numerous in the early days of the settlement than 

 they are now, for you will be sure at once to jump to the conclusion that 

 that was owing to the necessarily semi-savage habits of the first settlers and 

 to their contact with the Maoris. No doubt, as better houses were built 

 and more civilized habits became possible, these insect pests had not the 

 same chance as before, but this does not account for all the change. The 

 Maoris, too, with their pigs and their dogs can, in other parts of New 

 Zealand, account for a great deal of what was in those days, the special 

 characteristic of New Zealand, but inasmuch as there never were many 

 Maoris here, and they were hardly or ever employed or kept about the 

 settlers' premises, this cause had practically no existence here. And yet, 

 go where you liked, in town or country, the fleas were masters of the situa- 

 tion, and were more talked about than even the Crimean war. The whole 

 face of the country was covered everywhere with a dense impenetrable 



