large greyhound would do any thing. There are a couple of fox-hounds here, but no bitch. It would do your heart good to see the pace at which the fellows ride. Twenty miles on horseback they think about as much of as we do of five. There is nothing to obstruct the animals; they are not even shod, and they fly over the smooth sward. A hundred and twenty miles is reckoned a journey of a day and a half. A dray, with eight, ten, or twelve bullocks in it, according, to load, will travel thirty miles a-day. When the folks travel, they take no shelter in a house or hut for the night. When night approaches, they alight, and tie their horses to a stump; they draw down some of the thick branches of the gum-tree, and peel off the bark of a large tree, kindle a fire with a match, or, for want of this, rubbing two sticks together, get up a blaze, and fall to sleep beside it. If the traveller be accompanied by a dray, the tarpauling, is drawn round, and he sleeps beneath it. Not amongst the least of the annoyances found here are the ants. There are three species of the insect, and they are all very large. Many of them are an inch long, and they bite confoundedly. A hand bitten by some of the monsters will swell to the size of a man's head. Along the coast, and in every house, smaller ants prevail, and fleas innumerable. The number of the latter, which you shall find upon your blanket any day of the year, is literally not to be computed. No house is free from this little disturber, who spares neither age nor sex. I have stood upon the sea beach adorned with white trousers, which in less than ten minutes have been covered with hundreds of the vermin. It is an easy transition from the trousers to the inner legs. But this is nothing when you are used to it. The _grey horse_ won't live in the colony. So it is said; at all events none are seen; and I am very sure that every emigrant ship brings its fair stock. It is a wise ordination that forbids _their_ settling. The _mawk_ fly is indigenous, and thrives wonderfully, as you shall hear. This fly is very like our British bluebottle, with a somewhat greener head, and a body entirely yellow. I have seen two _mawk_ flies strike (as it seemed) a joint of meat, just as it was removing from the spit, leaving their fly blows there. Before the joint had been ten minutes upon the table, small white mawks were moving upon the surface of the meat in considerable numbers. If by any chance these animals are suffered to accompany the meat to the safe or larder, in the course of twenty-four hours the small white mawks increase to the length of one-eighth of an inch, and are found crawling in hundreds and moving about, as you have observed the yellow flies buzzing over the old and rotten carcass of a horse that has been exposed for weeks. In the winter these creatures are, of course, less troublesome than in summer. Wire meat-covers are in constant use during the latter season.