THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 399 



To the Northward of the Town, towards the Sea-shore, 

 lay very boggy stinking Ground: These Marshes commonly 

 about Autumn causes Agues and Fevers, which may be from 

 vast Swarms of invisible unwholesome Insects, which rise 

 from thence at that Season, but of a different Poison from those 

 which cause the Plague: So the like Places about Civita 

 Vecchia, Scandaroon, and I may mention the Isle of Sheppy 

 likewise, seem to cause Agues. And it is observable, that 

 from the Mouth of the River Magra, which divides Tuscany 

 from Liguria, along the Sea-Coast of Italy, as far as Terracina, 

 is very unhealthy, and subject to Agues and pestilential 

 Fevers, being marshy Ground. 



We may also observe that in Turkey, Egypt and Barbary, 

 when the Plague rages, the Franks, the English, etc., are 

 seldom infected with it, which seems to confirm my Opinion, 

 that this Sickness proceeds from Insects, who having their 

 certain natural Nourishments respectively appointed them, do 

 not in those Places infect Strangers, who have differing ways 

 of eating and living from the Natives, and are of a contrary 

 Nature of Body. It would be well worth Enquiry, if the People 

 of those Nations, that were in strange Countries in the Times 

 of Pestilence were also free from Infection. 



King Charles the lid when he was told of the Sickness 

 at Leghorne, said It must have been occasion'd by the new 

 Fortifications which were then building in those marshy Places; 

 And it is very rational to believe, that turning up those un- 

 wholesome Muds, and exposing them to the Sun, did much 

 increase the distemper, by infecting the Air, and filling it with 

 greater Supplies of poisonous Insects. 



Enough has been quoted of this writer, whose observations 

 cover nineteen pages, to indicate the trend of his ideas and also to 

 show that he was using the term insect in a specific sense and not 

 in the general sense evidently employed by Nott over a hundred 

 years later. 



