228 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
ranged over the fire, we ate our supper, and lay down on 
the pebbly shore with our feet to the fire, without pitching 
our tent, making a thin bed of grass to cover the stones. 
Here first I was molested by the little midge called the 
No-see-em (Simulium nocivum , the latter word is not 
the Latin for no-see-em), especially over the sand at the 
water’s edge, for it is a kind of sand-fly. You would not 
observe them but for their light-colored wings. They 
are said to get under your clothes, and produce a fever¬ 
ish heat, which I suppose was what I felt that night. 
Our insect foes in this excursion, to sum them up, 
were, first, mosquitoes, the chief ones, but only troublesome 
at night, or when we sat still on shore by day; second, 
black flies (Simulium molestum ), which molested us more 
or less on the carries by day, as I have before described, 
and sometimes in narrower parts of the stream. Harris 
mistakes when he says that they are not seen after June. 
Third, moose-flies. The big ones, Polis said, were called 
JBososquasis . It is a stout brown fly, much like a horse-fly, 
about eleven sixteenths of an inch long, commonly rusty 
colored beneath, with unspotted wings. They can bite 
smartly, according to Polis, but are easily avoided or 
killed. Fourth, the No-see-ems above mentioned. Of 
all these, the mosquitoes are the only ones that troubled 
me seriously; but, as I was provided with a wash and a 
veil, they have not made any deep impression. 
The Indian would not use our wash to protect his face 
and hands, for fear that it would hurt his skin, nor had 
he any veil; he, therefore, suffered from insects now, and 
throughout this journey, more than either of us. I think 
that he suffered more than I did, when neither of us was 
protected. He regularly tied up his face in his handker¬ 
chief, and buried it in his blanket, and he now finally lay 
