110 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



I'rom one of them. " I went down the other day to the 

 country, and was fairly driven out of it by the Hccma- 

 topota pluvialis, which attacked me with such fury, that 

 although I did not at last venture beyond the door with- 

 out a veil, my face and hands were swelled to that de- 

 gree as to be scarcely yet recovered from the effects of 

 their venom. I was obliged on my return to town to 

 stay two days at home. Whenever this insect bites me 

 it has this effect, and I have never been able to discover 

 any remedy for the torture it puts me to." In this coun- 

 try, however, the attacks of these flies are usually not 

 frequent enough to make them more than a minor " mi- 

 sery of human life ;" but the burning-fly [hndot) or sand- 

 fly of America * and the West Indies, which seem to be 

 the same insect, causes a much more intolerable anguish, 

 which has been compared to what a red-hot needle or a 

 spark of fire would occasion us to endure. Lambert, in 

 his Travels through Canada, &c. says, " They are so very 

 small as to be hardly perceptible in their attacks ; and 

 your forehead will be streaming with blood before you 

 are sensible of being amongst them''." — Yet we have one 

 species {Stomoxys calcitrans) alluded to in a former letter 

 as so nearly resembling the common house-fly *=, which, 

 though its oral instruments are to appearance not near 

 so tremendous, is a much greater torment than the horse- 

 fly. This little pest, I speak feelingly, incessantly in- 

 terrupts our studies and comfort in showery weather, 

 making us even stamp like the cattle by its attacks on 



' Bartram's Travels, .38.3. 



^ i. 127. Tlie West India sand-fly was noticed by the late Robinson 

 Kittoe, Esq., who however did not recollect their fetching blood. 

 •^ See above, p. 48-49. 



