SCORPIONS AND MOSQUITOS.

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of anybody being injured by one. In one of tlie shootinghabitations which I much used at Patria, the principal roomor hall consisted of a large square reed-covered place, aboutforty feet square. The hearth was in the centre, merelyconsisting of a brick layer, one foot high and six feet square,on which day and night was maintained a copious fire ofmyrtle wood, cut from the surrounding forest. At eachcorner of this general room was a square sleeping box ofdeal, just large enough to contain a large bed and one chair.Shelves and pegs were placed around for clothes, ammuni-tion, and the articles of toilet. Gnats are the torment ofall visitors to the Maremme , but I was glad to find thatthose subvertors of my rest were, in their turn, subjected tothe attacks of other parties besides the bipeds. The lastoperation of the evening upon going to bed was to take atowel, and flapping it about in the bed boxes, endeavour todrive out any remaining gnats which had withstood theeffects of a dram of gunpowder, burnt in the box to dis-compose them. The very first night I ever slept in one ofthose places, while looking after gnats, I spied a number ofthe cursed little humming bloodsuckers, hanging, as is theircustom, by their hind legs to the boarded ceiling over mybed. I revenged myself upon them by popping a lightedtaper under them so as to spoil their future piping, but Icannot exactly say whether I was more agreeably or dis-agreeably surprised to see that I had assistants in the workof gnat-killing. The boards, as all deal boards will do,had somewhat shrunk, so as to leave crevices between them.Out of these interstices I was surprised to see, whenever agnat was near, a little claw, like that of a miniature lobster,ever and anon popped forth and seize a gnat, then suddenlywithdrawn, together with my enemy the gnat. What littlefriend of mine could this possibjy be ?—Guess for a ducat,good reader!—Just over my bed, and seemingly by dozens