to wash them off, because, before the end of
the week it will be just as bad again, and you
may therefore consider yourself fortunate if
you succeed in enforcing the washing now
and then during the summer. It is scarcely
possible to sit or lie in peace, for the flies
crawl over your face and hands the whole
day long with an unconquerable pertinacity,
which becomes at last so irritating that you
end by wishing the nurseries of Rome still
produced a race of Domitians. Of fleas—a
subject never to be delicately discussed—a
volume might be easily written. "In
Germany and England," said a friend to me,
"we should not think of naming fleas; but
here they form a principal topic of
conversation." During the day there is no hope
of evading these tormentors, for no care on
your own part can secure you against them.
You bring them in yourself from the streets,
and every one who comes into the house
imports a fresh supply in their clothes. The
infliction becomes at times perfectly intolerable,
and you feel that philosophy avails as
little in the case of fleas, as in that of toothache,
to make you endure it patiently. At
night you may, however, with good management,
be free from them; but now a new
plague appears. The windows must be closed
just at the right moment before sunset,
otherwise—and often, indeed, in spite of all
you can do—swarms of gnats effect an entry,
and you are victimized the whole night. All
persons do not suffer equally from mosquito
bites, but I have seen instances where every
individual sting became an inflamed wound,
and continued to annoy for weeks. I found that
as the heat increased the bites became more
irritating and poisonous. At length, after
three successive nights, without having even
closed my eyes, my face and hands being
covered with stings, I rose in despair and
stitched together ten breadths of muslin, with
which, ere sunset, my bed was safely canopied
over, and from that time I slept in peace. I
heard the enemy buzzing outside in a tone of
sharp excitement, but they were henceforward
harmless.

Spiders form the next most important
feature in the history of Roman entomology.
A naturalist would indeed be delighted with
the great variety of species. Windows are
naturally the place where they most willingly
establish themselves, in the immediate
neighbourhood of flies. It was a subject of curiosity
to me to observe how every morning new
cobwebs appeared to replace those which I
had caused to be swept away the day before,
much to the astonishment of my Italian
damsel, who found cobwebs quite too much a
matter of course in a household ever to think
of removing them. The labours of Arachne
seem generally to be respected in Rome, and
I recollect noticing with amazement, the first
time I was here, how the gratings which
protect the lower range of windows in every
palace are choked up with spiders' webs,
accumulating from one year to another, till
they present at last a solid mass. Rome
teaches us what different ideas are attached
to the same in different countries. In the
North we associate with the word Palace the
notion that as such buildings are usually the
dwellings of the high-born or wealthy—
luxury, refinement, comfort, and cleanliness
must necessarily prevail there. In Rome a
popular saying expresses the belief that
palaces are the natural receptacles, by every
law human and divine, of all descriptions
of filth.

Another constant but harmless intruder
into houses where flower-pots are kept upon
balconies, is a small species of ant. I
first noticed them as I sat one evening
reading at the open window, and observed
that a regular procession of them crossed the
balcony and entered the room. Ere long I
remarked that a returning procession was
going on at the same time; after which I
discovered that the object of the expedition was
a plate of sweet cakes kept in a little cabinet
at the other end of the room. When this
was removed the tiny creatures entirely
disappeared. I brought it back, and they
immediately returned to it. Their instinct proved
unerring in all the experiments which I
amused myself with making. I placed the
cake sometimes on a table, sometimes on a
high secretaire, where they always in a very
short time found it out, though I could
perceive no traces of them when nothing was to
be had. As these little ants did not bite or
annoy us otherwise, we lived in peace with
them. One morning, however, my servant
brought me an intruder of a less innocent
character, the sight of which rather startled
me. It was a small scorpion, which she had
found close to the window, " beside the chair
where you sit when you are reading, Signora."
It was not full grown, but was a most malignant-
looking creature with claws and tail. I
shut it up in a box, and sent it as a present
to one of the gentlemen in the house who was
a collector. The next day I was told that a
point of natural history had been decided to
be a matter of fact which I had always looked
upon as a fable; namely, that the scorpion is
really guilty of suicide. The young men of
the house assembled together, influenced, as
they assured me, by a pure scientific desire of
knowledge, to make the experiment. They
placed the creature on the top of one of the
iron German stoves with which the Casa
Tarpeia is fitted up, and surrounded it with
glowing coals. It moved about for a short
time in great excitement, when, finding escape
impossible, it inflicted a wound in the side
with its pincers, then injected into the
opening the poison from the tail with a
trifling noise, and instantly fell down dead.

The long summer evenings may be spent
with great enjoyment in the various villas
in the suburbs of Rome; though access to
them is now much more difficult than before