DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 139 



the inanimate pieces of flesh, but also hterally to prey 

 upon the living substance ; and when the wretched man 

 was accidentally found by some of the inhabitants, he 

 was so eaten by the maggots that his death seemed in- 

 evitable. After clearing away as well as they were able 

 these shocking vermin, those who found Page conveyed 

 him to Asbornby, and a surgeon was immediately pro- 

 cured, who declared that his body was in such a state that 

 dressing it must be little short of instantaneous death ; 

 and in fact the man did survive the operation but a few 

 hours. When first found, and again when examined by the 

 surgeon, he presented a sight loathsome in the extreme; 

 white maggots of enormous size were crawling in and upon 

 his body, which they had most shockingly mangled, and 

 the removing of the external ones served only to render 

 the sight more horrid *." — A medical friend of mine, at 

 Ipswich, gave me this winter an apode larva voided by a 

 person of that place with his urine, which I now preserve 

 in spirits and can show you when you visit me. It appears 

 to me to belong to the Diptera order, yet not to the fly 

 tribes {Tanijstoma, Latr.), but rather to the Tipularice of 

 that author, with which however it does not seem to 

 agree so entirely as to take av/ay all doubt. It is a very 

 singular larva, and I can find none in any author that I 

 have had an opportunity of consulting which at all re- 

 sembles it. That you may know it, should you chance 

 to meet with it, I shall here describe it. Body, three 

 fourths of an inch in length, and about a line in breadth; 

 opaque, of a pale yellow colour ; cylindrical, tapering 



In passing through this parish last spring, I inquired of the niail- 

 coachman whether he had heard of this story ; and he said the fact 

 was well known. 



