Jump to content

Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/191

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.
INSECT LIFE IN LEVUKA.
167


FRED'S FLY.
reason that it follows the course of the beach. Outside the town it is prolonged into a road that nearly surrounds the island of Ovolau, and will completely encircle it in time. Two or three years ago we started to build a street railway; we made surveys and subscribed for the stock, but the Government opposed the project, and it was given up."

Our friends found accommodations at one of the hotels, and were fairly comfortable, or would have been if they could have escaped the flies and mosquitoes. These insects were numerous enough to form a veritable plague, and seemed to take special delight in annoying strangers. A planter who was stopping at the hotel declared that the flies had sentinels stationed to give notice of the arrival of a stranger so that all could pounce on him at once, and that whenever the flies grew weary of their work the mosquitoes came
FRANK'S MOSQUITO
forward to relieve them. Frank made a sketch of a Feejee mosquito, while Fred took the likeness of a native fly. These works of art were laid carefully away where the subjects thereof could not reach them with intents of destruction or mutilation.

Dinner was taken at the hotel-table, and proved, on the whole, a pleasant affair. The youths made several acquaintances among the planters, merchants, and others who were stopping there; Frank and Fred added materially to their stock of informa-