is about one
paul, and olives about three farthings per pound.

OAKS.

We observe three kinds of oaks which here both flourish and abound.
The _Farnia_, the _Querci_, and the _Leccio_--the last evidently a
corruption of Ilex. The first kind grows with amazing rapidity; in
twenty years it is a head and shoulders above all the other trees
which began life with it. It has very long acorns, which are less
astringent than those of either of the other trees, and very much
preferred by pigs. A common oak felled for ship timber costs, where it
stands, from ten to fourteen scudi, and they are in great request for
the Leghorn market.

INSECTS.

Insects do not greatly abound in the neighbourhood about Lucca. Even
the mosquito winds his horn less frequently in our valley, than his
universality elsewhere would lead you to expect. Our beds are free
from bugs, and fleas are not very troublesome. Of the out-of-doors
insects, those which live upon the vegetable kingdom are not very
numerous, nor of much variety. The _Cassida_, who rejoices in lettuce,
brings up his family in other districts where the lettuce abounds.
Wanting the tamarisk, we miss our little _Curculio_, who thrives upon
its leaves; and the _Bruchus pisi_, for want of peas, is frequently
caught in the bean-tops. But the republican armies of ants are
immense, and the realm of bees is uncircumscribed; as no birds of
prey, neither the audacious robin, nor the woodpecker, tapping away on
the hollow beech-tree, diminish their hordes. But if the fowls of the
air be few, the nets of entomologists abound. _Slaters_ of an immense
kind, and spotted, and small mahogany-coloured _Blattidae_, are found
under stones, which also conceal hordes of predatory _beetles_ and
_scorpions_, which bristle up at you as you expose them; and nests of
tiny _snakes_, that coil and cuddle together, from the size of
crowquills to the thickness of the little finger. During June and
July, the monotonous _Cicadae_ spring their rattles in the trees
around, and one comes at last even to like their note, in spite of its
sameness. A little later, flies and wasps send their buzzing progeny
into our dining-rooms, to tease us over our dessert, like troublesome
children: at the same period, some of the larger families of
_Longicorns_ abound, and one of them, _Hamaticherus moschatus_, musks
your finger if you lay hold of him. In the July and August evenings,
fire-flies scintillate on a thousand points a