CHAPTER IX. 



CERTAIN rARASITIC INSECTS. 



The subject of oiu' discourse is not only a disagreeable but 

 too often a painful one. Not only is the mere mention of the 

 creature's name of which w6 are to speak tabooed and avoided 

 by the refined and polite, but the creature itself has become 

 extinct and banished from the society of the good and respect- 

 able. Indeed, under such happy auspices do a large proportion 

 of the civilized world now live that their knowledge of the habits 

 and form of a louse may be represented by a blank. Not so with 

 some of their great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers, If his- 

 tory, sacred and profane, poetry,* and the annals of literature 

 testify aright; for it is comparativelj' a recent fact in history that 

 the louse has awakened to find himself an outcast and an alien. 

 Among savage nations of all climes, some of which have been 

 dignified with the apt, though high sounding name of Phthiri- 

 ophagi, and among the Chinese and other semi-civilized peoples, 

 these lords of the soil still fiourish with a luxuriance and rank- 

 uess of growth that never diminishes, so that we may say with- 

 out exaggeration that certain mental traits and fleshly appetites 



*HaI wliare ye pann, yo crowlin forliel 

 Your impiiileuce protects yon sairly : 

 I canna say but ye struiit rarely, 



Owre frauze aiKllace; 

 Tlio' faith, I fear ye dine but sparely 



On sic a place. 



Ye Ufrly. creepin, hlastic wonner. 

 Detested, sliunn'd by saunt and sinner, 

 How dare ye set your fit upon lier 



Sae fine a lady! « 



Gae somewhere else ami seek your dinner 

 Ou some poor body. 



(To a Louse. — Kurns) 

 (94) 



