INSECTS


AND


REPTILES.


the flesh. You can escape their bother by each morning
or evening bathing the ankles with ammonia or camphor,
or by rubbing them with vaseline-that is, if you must be
out in the woods. Also, in the autumn, if you are out in
the swamps, there is a wood-tick that assaults you, very
much like the red-bug, but its effect and the remedy are
precisely the same as with the red-bug.
 Fleas are undoubtedly a great pest, but as their cause is
well understood it is not impossible to keep reasonably free
of them. They are due to the innumerable dogs, hogs,
and other live-stock that are allowed free range every-
where; and if these are kept at a respectful distance and
rigidly excluded from the house, fleas also will be apt to be
conspicuous by their absence.
 Around dwellings there is a species of cockroach, of
mammoth size, which sometimes causes a good deal of an-
noyance.. They are not very numerous, however, are very
shy and clumsy, and may easily be got rid of by the means
that are found efficient elsewhere.
 The foregoing list includes, I believe, all the insect pests
and annoyances that are liable to trouble one in Florida.
Of these, very few invade the house; that is, if it is a
house as understood in the Northern States-a neat, clean,
wholesome abode; but if you can be brought to inhabit a
flimsily constructed, dirty cracker" cabin, open for every-
thing to enter, they will very probably visit you, and may
even be induced to take up a permanent residence.
 As a final word I would say that if one lives civilized,
keeps clean as to house and person, and uses mosquito-bars
and netting for. the beds and screens for windows and
doors, just as is done at the North, the insects are no more
troublesome here than there.