The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1884-08-09
The Gailinipper.


linipper?
Well, / never heard of the thing till
came to Florida, and as | knew that the
esteemed Noah Webster, the. compiler Of
the unabridged" never visited the
swamps of the "Land of Flowers
hardly expected to find the definition OF
gallinipper in his dictionary. Neverthe-
less, took the trouble to look, and found
to my astonishment this:
Gallinipper-a large mosquito.
Well, Mr.. Editor, did smile, and was
more than ever convinced of the COM
pIeteness and unerring correctness of our
dear Webster.
Certainly it is large mosquito, never
looking smaller than hawk in the day
time; at campfire, in the evening, it
looks like wild cat with shining eyes,
but at night, when one falls into rest
less sIumber, it seems in our dreams big
ger than an elephant, with a trunk so
long that one can't see the end.
The gallinippers. like all mosquitoes
and their kindred, are insects, have 6
feet, two wings, are of brown color, and
trunk with a sucking apparatus at
tached to it, which beats any steam
pump.
What is the bite of flea, bed-bug or
mosquito compared to that of the gaIli-
nipper / remember when | saw the first
one. 1t was on hunt out Kings road,
near Jacksonville. 1t alighted on Char
ley Britt and bit through his overcoat
and oil cloth, relieving him of about a
pint Of blood in a minute, and leaving
behind a swelling as big as a sunfower
and as red as a cooked lobster. The only
relief poor Charley could get was Wig
orous rubbing with the whisky bottle
On my journey down the Indian river
with DIR. Ack. he saw one and, from the
jump he made clear across me, striking
me with the heels of his canvass base
ball shoes on the nose, judge that he
must have had some very sad experience
previously.
But Putnam county takes the first
prize. Lately going up Hoag creek, near
Crescent City, with John Burton, Jack
Main and G. G.. Woodnough, we under
went the most severe trial ever inflicted
on human beings. We rowed up near
the headwaters and landed on the Burn
side settlement. After finding a pleasant
place to camp and cooking a meal, we
started for hunt Mr.. Burnside has a
large corn field, and Jack shot large
chicken hawk which dropped in the
field. Jack jumped the fence, and go
ing in the corn thirty feet, he began to
jump, halo, scream and so through the
most comical performances. Running
back we saw him just literally covered
with gallinippers, and we took the but
ends of our guns to kill them. There
were millions in this corn field and they,
stirred up by Jack, made for all of us
and we made, at break neck speed, for
our camp. Just then a heavy shower
came up, drenching us to the skin. but
giving relief from our tormentors. In
the evening we built a large fire and lay
two on the lee side of it, but were COM
PEELED to make another and another till
we finally had nine fires all around us,
but still sleep was impossible. We held
council and concluded that one of us
should stay up for two hours at time
and, with a large palmetto leaf, whip
the beasts away, and on the expiration
of the two hours, wake up the next one
John Burton had the first watch and |
helped him, bnt it took the strength of
both of us to get the blanket, which was
held down by some of the gallinippers,
off of me, and when my time had ex-
pired / woke up Woodnough, who was
kicking and rolling under his blanket
He awoke and leaning ON his knees, he
pulled-pulled, but couldn't get his hand
from the ground took piece of burn
ing lightwood and saw very big galli-
nipper, braced and holding on a pine
log with his legs and his bill clear
through the blanket, w S hand and into
the ground. After hitting it several
times with my lightwood knot it let go
and flew away. | then took some tur-
pentine from a pine tree and closed up
the hole in WIS hand, when he took his
turn on the watch
In the morning we found that the in
sects had tried to put out our fires, by
large numbers of them pulling on the
burning wood, with the intention of
drawing the fires apart, but we had
rolled only very heavy logs together and
set them on fire. RUD.
The New work Stats Zeitung says
The republican party has, since the
nomination of Blaine, entirely lost the