Thus, While He May Be Engaged
In Pinning Out Some Rare Specimen, A Thousand Minute Eye-Flies
Will Be Dancing So Close To His Eyeballs That Seeing Is Out Of
The Question.
These little creatures, which are no larger than
pin's heads, are among the greatest plagues in some parts of the
jungle; and what increases the annoyance is the knowledge of the
fact that they dance almost into your eyes out of sheer vanity.
They are simply admiring their own reflection in the mirror of
the eye; or, may be, some mistake their own reflected forms for
other flies performing the part of a "vis-à-vis" in their
unwearying quadrille.
A cigar is a specific against these small plagues, and we will
allow that the patient entomologist has just succeeded in putting
them to flight and has resumed the occupation of setting out his
specimen. Ha! see him spring out of his chair as though
electrified. Watch how, regardless of the laws of buttons, he
frantically tears his trowsers from his limbs; he has him! no he
hasn't! - yes he has! - no - no, positively he cannot get him
off. It is a tick no bigger than a grain of sand, but his bite
is like a red-hot needle boring into the skin. If all the royal
family had been present, he could not have refrained from tearing
off his trowsers.
The naturalist has been out the whole morning collecting, and a
pretty collection he has got - a perfect fortune upon his legs
alone.
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