title: Best method to peek into a Scala Actor's Mailbox
body: <p>Using Scala 2.8 RC1 or newer, what is the best (easiest and/or most direct) method to "peek" at the waiting messages in an actor's mailbox (from within the same actor's act() method) in order to examine what is in the queue, without having to react/receive the messages and/or disturb the current contents of the mailbox in any way.</p>
  
  <p>The purpose of this is so that an actor may determine if it is safe to process a request to exit by first determining if any of the remaining mailbox messages are ones that must be processed, instead of just dropped by stopping the actor immediately.</p>