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LETTERS FROM ALABxiMA. 
told of some severe dogs/’ kept in this vicinity; 
and perhaps you have heard the joke about that 
most severe pony,” which is said to have been 
chased thrice round the field by a flash of light- 
ning, and gained the race at last. When one 
wishes another to' cease doing what is unpleasant, 
he requests him to quit doing it,” or else make 
tracks^’’ that is, “ go away.” Good,” is used in 
the sense of “ well ;” “ he writes good.” Eight,” 
in the old English acceptation of “very,” thus: 
“ it is a right pretty book.” When one wishes to 
speak contemptuously of another, he either calls 
him “all sorts of a feller,” or says, “he’s no 
account.” To learn a thing by heart is to “ memo- 
rize ” it. Inquiry is pronounced and accented 
“ enquiry;” idea is idea; and other anomalies in 
accentuation exist, of which these may suffice. 
Still I have never heard an American fall into the 
blunder of calling a white egg, a wite kegg^' as 
thousands of our countrymen do. But what has 
all this to do with natural history ? — not much, in 
good truth, unless you class it under the head of 
“ habits and manners of animals belonging to the 
genus Homo''' 
There are some insects which, without any parti- 
cular or assignable reason, I have always had — 
ever since I cared anything about entomology — an 
especial desire to see. A living specimen of some 
of the larger species of Cicadce was of this sort. 
I have at length been gratified. For some time I 
have observed on the trunks of trees, especially 
pines, the empty pupa-skin of a very large species, 
very firmly attached by the cla'ws to the bark of 
the tree, at some feet above the ground. From its 
position and ' shape, one might easily mistake it 
