countries, especially when we approach the poles or the line, are
destined to suffer from them; for there they interfere so much with
ease and comfort, as to become one of the worst of pests and a real
misery of human life. We may be disposed to smile perhaps at the
story Mr. Weld relates from General Washington, that in one place
the mosquitos were so powerful as to pierce through his boots[174]
(probably they crept within the boots): but in various regions
scarcely any thing less impenetrable than leather can withstand their
insinuating weapons and unwearied attacks. One would at first imagine
that regions where the polar winter extends its icy reign would not
be much annoyed by insects: but however probable the supposition,
it is the reverse of fact, for nowhere are gnats more numerous.
These animals, as well as numbers of the _Tipulariæ_ of Latreille,
seem endowed with the privilege of resisting any degree of cold,
and of bearing any degree of heat. In Lapland their numbers are so
prodigious as to be compared to a flight of snow when the flakes
fall thickest, or to the dust of the earth. The natives cannot take
a mouthful of food, or lie down to sleep in their cabins, unless
they be fumigated almost to suffocation. In the air you cannot draw
your breath without having your mouth and nostrils filled with
them; and unguents of tar, fish-grease, or cream; or nets steeped
in fetid birch-oil, are scarcely sufficient to protect even the
case-hardened cuticle of the Laplander from their bite[175]. In
certain districts of France, the accurate Reaumur informs us that he
has seen people whose arms and legs have become quite monstrous from
wounds inflicted by gnats; and in some cases in such a state as to
render it doubtful whether amputation would not be necessary[176].
In the neighbourhood of the Crimea the Russian soldiers are obliged
to sleep in sacks to defend themselves from the mosquitos; and
even this is not a sufficient security, for several of them die
in consequence of mortification produced by the bites of these
furious blood-suckers. This fact is related by Dr. Clarke, and to
its probability his own painful experience enabled him to speak. He
informs us that the bodies of himself and his companions, in spite
of gloves, clothes, and handkerchiefs, were rendered one entire
wound, and the consequent excessive irritation and swelling excited
a considerable degree of fever. In a most sultry night, when not a
breath of air was stirring, exhausted by fatigue, pain, and heat,
he sought shelter in his carriage: and, though almost suffocated,
could not venture to open a window for fear of the mosquitos.
Swarms nevertheless found their way into his hiding-place; and,
in spite of the handkerchiefs with which he had bound up his head,
filled his mouth, nostrils, and ears. In the midst of his torment
he succeeded in lighting a lamp, which was extinguished in a moment
by such a prodigious number of these insects, that their carcases
actually filled the glass chimney, and formed a large conical heap
over the burner. The noise they make in flying cannot be conceived
by persons who have only heard gnats in England. It is to all that
hear it a most fearful sound[177]. Travellers and mariners who have
visited warmer climates give a similar account of the torments there
inflicted by these little demons. One traveller in Africa complains
that after a fifty miles journey they would not suffer him to rest,
and that his face and hands appeared, from their bites, as if he was
infected with the small-pox in its worst stage[178]. In the East, at
Batavia, Dr. Arnold, a most attentive and accurate observer, relates
that their bite is the most venomous he ever felt, occasioning a
most intolerable itching, which lasts several days. The sight or
sound of a single one either prevented him from going to bed for a
whole night, or obliged him to rise many times. This species, which
I have examined, is distinct from the common gnat, and appears to be
nondescript. It approaches nearest to _C. annulatus_, but the wings
are black and not spotted. And Captain Stedman in America, as a proof
of the dreadful state to which he and his soldiers were reduced by
them, mentions that they were forced to sleep with their heads thrust
into holes made in the earth with their bayonets, and their necks
wrapped round with their hammocks[179].
From Humboldt also we learn that "between the little harbour of
Higuerote and the mouth of the Rio Unare the wretched inhabitants are
accustomed to stretch themselves on the ground, and pass the night
buried in the sand three or four inches deep, leaving out the head
only, which they cover with a handkerchief." This illustrious traveller
has given an account in detail of these insect plagues, by which it
appears that amongst them there are diurnal, crepuscular, and nocturnal
species, or genera: the _Mosquitos_ or _Simulia_ flying in the day; the
_Temporaneros_, probably a kind of _Culex_, flying during twilight; and
the _Zancudos_ or _Culices_ in the night. So that there is no rest for
the inhabitants from their torment day or night, except for a short
interval between the retreat of one species and the attack of another.
We learn from this author that the sting or bite of the _Simulium_ is
as bad as that of the _Stomoxys_ before noticed[180].
It is not therefore incredible that Sapor, king of Persia, as is
related, should have been compelled to raise the siege of Nisibis
by a plague of gnats, which attacking his elephants and beasts of
burthen, so caused the rout of his army, whatever we may think of the
miracle to which it was attributed[181]; nor that the inhabitants of
various cities, as Mouffet has collected from different authors[182],
should, by an extraordinary multiplication of this plague, have been
compelled to desert them; or that by their power to do mischief,
like other conquerors who have been the torment of the human race,
they should have attained to fame, and have given their name to bays,
towns, and even to considerable territories[183].
And now, which seems to you the greater terror, that the forest
should resound with the roar of the lion or the tiger, or with
the hum of the gnat? Which evil is most to be deprecated, the
neighbourhood of these ferocious animals, terrible as they are for
their cruelty and strength, or to live amidst the polar or tropical
myriads of mosquitos, and be subject to the torture of their
incessant attacks? When you consider that from the one, prudence and
courage may secure or defend us without any material sacrifice of our
daily comforts; while to be at rest from the other, we must either
render ourselves disgusting by filthy unguents, or be suffocated by
fumigations, or be content to be bound, head, hand and foot, shut out
from the respiration of the common air, and even thus scarcely escape
from their annoyance; you will feel convinced that the former is the
more tolerable evil of the two, and be inclined to think that those
cities, from which the lions were driven away by the more powerful
gnats, were no great gainers by the exchange[184]. With what grateful
hearts ought the privileged inhabitants of these happy islands to
acknowledge and glorify the goodness of that kind Providence which
has distinguished us from the less favoured nations of the globe,
by what may be deemed an immunity from this tormenting pest! for
the inroads which they make on our comfort, when contrasted with
what so many other people of every climate suffer from them, are
mere nothings. When we behold on one side of us the ravages of
the wide-wasting sword, on another those of infectious disease or
pestilence, on a third famine destroying its myriads, and on a fourth
life rendered uncomfortable by the terror of "noisome beasts," and
the attack of noxious insects: and when we look at home and see
every one eating his bread in peace, protected in his enjoyments
by equal laws executed by a mild government under a paternal
king, without fearing the sword of the oppressor; not scourged by
pestilence or famine, exposed to the attack of no ferocious animal,
and comparatively speaking but slightly visited by the annoyance of
insect tormentors; and especially when we further reflect that it is
his mercy and not our merits which has induced him thus to overwhelm
us with blessings, while other countries have been made to drink deep
of the cup of his fury, we shall see reason for an increased degree
of thankfulness and gratitude, and, instead of repining, be well
content with our lot, though our offences have not wholly been passed
over, and we have been "beaten with few stripes."
* * * * *
Besides the insects that seek to make us their food, there are
others, which, although we are apt to regard them with the greatest
horror, do not attack us with this view, but usually to revenge some
injury which they have received, or apprehend from us. Foremost
in the list of these are those with four wings, which, according
to the observation of Pliny before quoted, carry their weapon, an
instrument of revenge, in their _tail_. These all belong to the
Linnean order _Hymenoptera_; and the tremendous arms with which they
annoy us, are two darts finer than a hair, furnished on their outer
side at the end with several barbs not visible to the naked eye,
and each moving in the groove of a strong and often curved sheath,
frequently mistaken for the sting, which, when the darts enter the
flesh, usually injects a drop of subtle venom, furnished from a
peculiar vessel in which it is secreted, into the wound, occasioning,
especially if the darts be not extracted, a considerable tumour,
accompanied by very acute pain. Many insects are thus armed and have
this power. Twice I have been stung by an Ichneumon; first by one
with a concealed sting, and afterwards by another of the family of
_Pimpla Manifestator_, with a very long exerted one. I had held the
insect by its sting, which it withdrew from between my fingers with
surprising force, and then, as if in revenge, stung me. _Pompilus
viaticus_, one of the spider-wasps, once, in this way, gave me
acute pain. Mr. W. S. MacLeay states that at the Havana he was once
stung by a gigantic _Pompilus_ (probably _P. Heros_), from which he
suffered a very short-lived pain, but the wound bled as if punctured
by a pin. The bleeding he conjectures carried off the venom. But
the insects which in this respect principally attract our notice
by exciting our fears, are the hive-bee, the wasp, and the hornet.
The first of these, the _bee_, sometimes manifests an antipathy
to particular individuals, whom it attacks and wounds without
provocation; but the two last, though apparently the most formidable,
are not so ill-tempered as they are conceived to be, seldom molesting
those who do not first interfere with or disturb them. We learn
from Scripture that the _hornet_ (but whether it was the common
species is uncertain) was employed by Providence to drive out the
impious inhabitants of Canaan, or subdue them under the hand of the
Israelites[185].--The effect produced by the sting of these animals
is different in different persons. To some they occasion only a very
slight inconvenience or a momentary pain; others feel the smart of
the wounds which they inflict for several days, and are thrown into
fevers by them; and to some they have even proved fatal[186]. Yet
these insects are certainly, in general, but a trifling evil. They
become, however, especially _wasps_, a very serious one to many,
from the mere dread of being stung by them, even though they should
not carry their fears to the same length with the lady mentioned by
Dr. Fairfax[187], in the _Philosophical Transactions_, who had such
a horror of them, that during the season in which they abound in
houses, she always confined herself to her apartment.
_Ants_ are insects of this order, which, though our indigenous
species may be regarded as harmless, in some countries are gifted
with double means of annoyance, both from their sting and their
bite. A green kind in New South Wales was observed by Sir Joseph
Banks to inflict a wound scarcely less painful than the sting of a
bee[188]. Another, from the intolerable anguish occasioned by its
bite, which resembles that produced by a spark of fire, and seems
attended by venom, is called the fire-ant. Captain Stedman relates
that this caused a whole company of soldiers to start and jump about
as if scalded with boiling water; and its nests were so numerous
that it was not easy to avoid them[189]. We are told of a third
species, which emulates the scorpion in the malignity of its sting
or bite[190]. Knox, in his account of Ceylon, mentions a black ant,
called by the natives _Coddia_, which he says "bites desperately, as
bad as if a man were burnt by a coal of fire; but they are of a noble
nature, and will not begin unless you disturb them." The reason the
Cinghalese assign for the horrible pain occasioned by their bite is
curious, and will serve to amuse you. "Formerly these ants went to
ask a wife of the _Noya_, a venomous and noble kind of snake; and
because they had such a high spirit to dare to offer to be related to
such a generous creature, they had this virtue bestowed upon them,
that they should sting after this manner. And if they had obtained a
wife of the Noya, they should have had the privilege to sting full
as bad as he[191]." Stedman's story of a large ant that stripped the
trees of their leaves, to feed, as was supposed, a blind serpent
under ground[192], is somewhat akin to this: as is also another,
related to me by a friend of mine, of a species of Mantis, now in
my cabinet, taken in one of the Indian islands, which, according
to the received opinion amongst the natives, was the parent of all
their serpents. Whence, unless perhaps from their noxious qualities,
could this idea of a connexion between insects and these reptiles be
derived? But to return from this digression----Madame Merian's Ant of
Visitation (_Œcodoma cephalotes_) will be considered in a subsequent
letter: but I cannot here omit a circumstance mentioned by Don Felix
de Azara, a late Spanish traveller, who confirms her account,--that
these animals are so alarming and tremendous in their attacks, that
if they enter a house in the night, the inhabitants are obliged to
rise with all speed and run off in their shirts.
I must next direct your attention to an insect, which perhaps
more than any other has in every age been an object of terror and
abhorrence--I mean the redoubted _scorpion_. And though I shall not,
with Aristotle, tell you of Persian kings employing armies for several
days in destroying them; or, with Pliny, of countries that they have
depopulated; yet my account will not be devoid of that species of
interest which the dread of its power to do us injury imparts to any
object. Could you see one of these ferocious animals, perhaps a foot
in length, a size to which they sometimes attain, advancing towards
you in their usual menacing attitude, with its claws expanded, and its
many-jointed tail turned over its head; were your heart ever so stout,
I think you would start back and feel a horror come across you; and,
though you knew not the animal, you would conclude that such an aspect
of malignity must be the precursor of malignant effects. Nor would you
be mistaken, as you will presently see. This alarming animal, though
like hymenopterous insects it is armed with a sting, is in no respect
related to that order, and forms the only genus, at present known, of
the others that is so armed. Even its sting is totally different from
that of bees, wasps, and other Hymenoptera, being more analogous to the
venomous tooth of serpents; it wounds us with no barbed darts concealed
in a sheath, but only with a simple incurved mucro terminating an
ampullaceous joint. Two orifices, or according to some three, are
said to instill the poison, which, we are informed, is sometimes as
white as milk. This venom in our European species is seldom attended,
except to minor animals, by any very serious consequences; yet when it
is communicated by the scorpion of warmer climates it produces more
baneful effects. The sting of certain kinds common in South America
causes fevers, numbness in various parts of the body, tumours in the
tongue, and dimness of sight, which symptoms last from twenty-four to
forty-eight hours. The only means of saving the lives of our soldiers
who were stung by them in Egypt, was amputation. One species is said
to occasion madness; and the black scorpion, both of South America and
Ceylon, frequently inflicts a mortal wound[193]. No known animal is
more cruel and ferocious in its manners; they kill and devour their
own young without pity as soon as they are born, and they are equally
savage to their fellows when grown up. Terrible however and revolting
as these creatures appear, we are gravely told by Naudé, that there is
a species of scorpion in Italy which is domesticated, and put between
the sheets to cool the beds during the heats of summer[194]!!
I must next say something of insects that annoy us solely by their
_jaws_. Of this description is _Galeodes araneoides_ which is related
to the scorpion, although devoid of a sting. The bite of this animal,
which is a native of the Cape of Good Hope and of Russia[195], is
represented to be often fatal both to man and beast. Another species
of _Galeodes_ is described by Professor Lichtenstein, which, from the
trivial name that he has given it (_fatalis_), may be supposed to be
as venomous as the former[196].
The bite of one of the centipedes (_Scolopendra morsitans_)--the
under-jaws, or rather arms, of which are armed with a strong
claw, furnished like the sting of the scorpion with an orifice,
visible under a common lens[197], from which poison issues--is less
tremendous than that of the animal last mentioned: but though not
mortal, its wounds are more painful than those produced by the sting
of the scorpion; and as these animals creep every where, even into
beds, they must be very annoying in warm climates where they abound.
Dr. Martin Lister, in his _Travels_, has given us a figure of an
insect related to this genus, that he saw in Plumier's collection,
which appears to have been eighteen inches in length, and three
quarters of an inch in width, having ninety-five legs on each side,
the first eight of which are armed with double claws, and two inches
of the tail being without legs. It may form a distinct genus, and is
probably a native of South America. Yet even this monstrous insect
is nothing to those at Carthagena, mentioned by Ulloa, (if indeed we
may credit his account, or if his translator has not mistaken his
meaning,) which sometimes exceeded a yard in length and five inches
in breadth! The bite of this gigantic serpent-like creature, he tells
us, is mortal, as well it may, if a timely remedy be not applied.
From its cylindrical form it should be a Julus[198].
In this catalogue of noxious insects I must not omit those which
every where force themselves upon our notice, and are viewed
with general disgust. I mean the numerous family of Arachne, the
insidious spiders. Few of these, however, are really personal
assailants of man. The principal is that which has given rise to so
much discussion, and has so much employed the pens of naturalists
and physicians--the famous _Tarentula_ (_Lycosa Tarentula_). The
effects ascribed to its wounds, and their wonderful cure supposed
to be wrought by music and dancing, have long been celebrated: but
after all there seems to have been more of fraud than of truth in
the business; and the whole evil appears to consist in swelling and
inflammation. Dr. Clavitio submitted to be bitten by this animal, and
no bad effects ensued; and the Count de Borch, a Polish nobleman,
bribed a man to undergo the same experiment, in whom the only result
was a swelling in the hand, attended by intolerable itching. The
fellow's sole remedy was a bottle of wine, which charmed away all his
pain without the aid of pipe and tabor[199].
There is however a spider (_Theridium_ 13_-guttatum_) the bite
of which is said to be very dangerous, and even mortal. Thiébaut
de Berneaud, in his _Voyage to Elba_[200], affirms that in the
Volterrano he knew that several country people and domestic animals
died in consequence of it. And according to Mr. Jackson, a spider,
called there the _Tendaraman_, is found in Marocco which has venomous
powers equally formidable. The bite of this insect, which is about
the size and colour of a hornet but rounder, and spins a web so fine
as to be almost invisible, is said to be so poisonous that the person
bitten survives but a few hours. In the cork forests the sportsman,
eager in his pursuit of game, frequently carries away on his garments
this fatal insect, which is asserted always to make towards the head
before inflicting its deadly wound[201].
* * * * *
I suspect you will think this list long enough; and I believe it
includes the most remarkable insects that assail the surface of our
bodies, to answer either the demands of hunger or the stimulus of
revenge. There is however a third class of insect annoyers, as I
observed at the beginning of this letter, which, though they neither
make us their food, nor attack us under the impulse of fear or revenge,
incommode us extremely in other ways. These must now be detailed to you.
How extremely unpleasant is the sensation which that very minute fly,
_Thrips physapus_, excites in sultry weather, merely by creeping over
our skin! I have sometimes found this almost intolerable. A similar
torment reckoned by Ulloa a kind of Mosquito, infests the inhabitants
of Carthagena in South America. They are there called _Mantas blancas_,
and creeping between the threads of the gauze curtains that keep off
the former pest, though they do not bite, occasion an itching that
is dreadfully tormenting[202]. But these are nothing compared with
the teasing attacks of another gnat (_Simulium reptans_), which, as
Linné informs us, who misnamed it a Culex, is so incredibly numerous
in Lapland, as entirely to cover a man's body, turning a white
dress into a black one, occupying the whole atmosphere, filling the
mouth, nostrils, eyes, and ears of travellers, and thus preventing
respiration, and almost choking them. These little animals, he says, do
not bite, but torture incessantly by their titillation[203].--In New
South Wales a small ant was observed by Sir Joseph Banks, inhabiting
the roots of a plant, which when disturbed rushed out by myriads, and
running over the uncovered parts of the body produced a sensation of
this kind that was worse than pain.
The common house-fly is with us often sufficiently annoying at the
close of summer; but we know nothing of it as a tormentor compared
with the inhabitants of southern Europe.--"I met (says Arthur Young
in his interesting _Travels through France_) between Pradelles and
Thuytz, mulberries and flies at the same time; by the term _flies_
I mean those myriads of them which form the most disagreeable
circumstance of the southern climates. They are the first torments
in Spain, Italy, and the Olive district of France: it is not that
they bite, sting, or hurt, but they buzz, tease, and worry: your
mouth, eyes, ears, and nose, are full of them: they swarm on every
eatable,--fruit, sugar, milk, every thing is attacked by them in such
myriads, that if they are not incessantly driven away by a person who
has nothing else to do, to eat a meal is impossible. They are however
caught on prepared paper and other contrivances with so much ease and
in such quantities, that were it not from negligence, they could not
abound in such incredible quantities. If I farmed in these countries,
I think I should manure four or five acres every year with dead
flies.--I have been much surprised that the late learned Mr. Harmer
should think it odd to find, by writers who treated of southern
climates, that driving away flies was an object of importance. Had he
been with me in Spain and in Languedoc in July and August, he would
have been very far from thinking there was any thing odd in it[204]."
Our friend Captain Green, of the sixth regiment of the East India
Company's native troops, relates to me, that in India, when the mangoes
are ripe, which is the hottest part of the summer, a very minute black
fly makes its appearance, which, because it flies in swarms into the
eyes, is very troublesome, and causes much pain, is called there the
_eye-fly_. At this season the eyes are attacked by a disease, supposed
to be occasioned by eating the mangoes, but more probably the result of
the irritation produced by the fly in question, which, however, they
admit, carries the infection from one person to another.
You know that the hairs taken from the pods of _Dolichos pruriens_
and _urens_, L., commonly called _Cowhage_ and _Cow-itch_[205],
occasion a most violent itching, but perhaps are not aware
that those of the _caterpillars_ of several Moths will produce
the same disagreeable effect. One of these is the procession
moth, (_Lasiocampa processionea_) of which Reaumur has given so
interesting an account. In consequence of their short stiff hairs
sticking in his skin, after handling them, he suffered extremely
for several days; and being ignorant at first of the cause of the
itching, and rubbing his eyes with his hands, he brought on a
swelling of the eye-lids, so that he could scarcely open them. Ladies
were affected even by going too near the nest of the animal, and
found their necks full of troublesome tumours, occasioned by short
hairs, or fragments of hair, brought by the wind[206]. Of this nature
also is the famous Pityocampa of the ancients, the moth of the fir
(_Lasiocampa Pityocampa_), the hairs of which are said to occasion a
very intense degree of pain, heat, fever, itching and restlessness.
It was accounted by the Romans a very deleterious poison, as is
evident from the circumstance of the Cornelian law "_De sicariis_"
being extended to persons who administered _Pityocampa_[207].