230 
NATURE NOTES. 
cause their victims trouble almost beyond endurance. It is a 
hopeless task trying to describe the torture inflicted by the clouds 
of mosquitoes all over the country. I am quite aware that in 
some parts the people flatter themselves they are without this 
plague, but our experience was that in such districts they merely 
came in fewer numbers ; the “ gallynippers ” (mammoth mos- 
quitoes, twice as blood-thirsty and vicious in their habits) 
generally supplying any deficiency. 
The coloured people particularly are troubled with “ tetter- 
worm,” through walking, they say, barefoot in the morning 
dew. This horrible thing — I am not very clear as to what it 
really is — burrows a path for itself just under the skin, very 
much as a leaf-minor does in a leaf. The track of the creature 
can be thus traced all about the foot ; it is most difficult to kill 
and very painful, even dangerous, as if neglected it causes the 
flesh to slough, and much mischief to ensue. 
Of the scorpions, bloodsuckers, sand flies, ticks, and gnats, 
the less said the better, but oh, the horse flies ! in some cases 
more than an inch long. Cows, horses, and mules have a 
wretched time, especially in the summer, when they are eaten 
alive, and come home with the blood running down them. 
When driving we used to spend all our time killing these soft, 
fat-bodied insects, which die at the least touch — in fact the com- 
monest kind never seem, in any case, to live more than twenty- 
four hours, and those which come into the houses are always 
dead next morning. Their sting is really painful. 1 remember 
one day, when walking through the flat woods, suddenl}’ feeling 
something like a pin running into my arm, and on looking down 
found it to be an extra big horse-fly. The arm was most tender 
for daj's after, feeling as though badly bruised, and was so much 
swollen as to make it quite a difficult matter drawing any sleeve 
over it. The “coachman fly ” is said to feed on these horse-flies, 
and in order to catch them, will sit through a whole drive on the 
collar or some other part of the harness, or even on the steed 
itself, in order to pounce on the insects as they settle ; the curious 
thing being that the horses seem to know the difference, for 
directly a horse-fly comes, even if it does not sting, they become 
restless, tossing their heads, and lashing with their tails, but the 
“ coachman ” may rest on any part of them, for any length of 
time, and never be interfered with or driven off. 
The insects which attack crops are far more serious. The 
variety of grasshoppers and locusts is enormous, their colouring 
is vivid, and they do endless harm, the palmer-worms even 
more so than the perfect insects. A brown and green grass- 
hopper, about two inches long, is the most destructive to orange 
tress, while the ‘^soldier-bug ” — a huge scarlet and yellow locust 
— devotes all his energies to devouring flowers and vegetables. 
The “ katydids ” are a lovely green colour, with wing-cases 
exactly like the young orange leaves, from which it is almost 
impossible to distinguish them. The tomato crops have also to 
