88 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



yet to settle the meaning of terms is of the first importance. To inquire 

 what ancient writers intended by the words which they employ, and 

 whether such as have been usually regarded as synonymous are really so, 

 may often furnish us with a clue to some useful or interesting truth ; and 

 not seldom enable us to rescue their reputation from much of the censure 

 which has been inconsiderately cast upon it. Because they did not know 

 every thing, or so much as we do, we are too apt to think that they knew 

 nothing. That they fell into very considerable errors, especially in sub- 

 jects connected with Natural History, cannot be denied ; but then it 

 ought to be considered that they possessed scarcely any of those advanta- 

 ges by which we are enabled to penetrate into nature's secrets. The 

 want of the microscope alone was an effectual bar to their progress in 

 this branch of science. Yet,in some instances, when they took a general view 

 of a subject, they appear to have had very correct ideas. This observa- 

 tion particularly applies to the philosopher of Stagyra, whose mighty mind 

 and lyncean eye, in spite of those mists of prejudice and fable that envel- 

 oped the age in which he lived, enabled him in part to pierce through the 

 gloom, and comprehend and behold the fair outline that gives symmetry, 

 grace, and beauty to the whole of nature's form, though he mistook, or 

 was not able to trace out, her less prominent features and minor linea- 

 ments. 



It is now time to return from this long digression, which, however, is 

 closely connected with the subject of this letter, to the point from which 

 I deviated. Taking my leave of the disgusting animals which gave rise 

 to it, 1 proceed to call your attention to another of our pigmy tormentors 

 (JPuhx irritans), which, in the opinion of some, seems to have been 

 regarded as an agreeable rather than a repulsive object. " Dear miss," 

 said a hvely old lady to a friend of mine (who had the misfortune to be 

 confined to her bed by a broken limb, and was complaining that the fleas 

 tormented her), "don't you like j/Zeos? Well, I think they are the pret- 

 tiest little merry things in the world. — I never saw a dull flea in all my 

 life." The celebrated Willughby kept a favorite flea, which used at 

 stated times to be admitted to suck the palm of his hand ; and enjoyed 

 this privilege for three months, when the cold killed it. And Dr. Town- 

 son, from the encomium which he bestows upon these vigilant little vault- 

 ers, as supplying the place of an alarum and driving us from the bed of 

 sloth, should seem to have regarded them with feelings much more com- 

 placent than those of Dr. Clarke and his friends, when their hopes of 

 passing " one night free from the attacks of vermin" were changed into 

 despair by the information of the laughing Sheik, that " the king of the 

 fleas held his court at Tiberias:" or than those of MM. Lewis and Clarke, 

 who found them more tormenting than all the other plagues of the Mis- 

 souri country, where they sometimes compel even the natives to shift their 

 quarters. If you unhappily view them in this unfavorable light, and have 

 found ordinary methods unavailing for ridding yourself of these unbidden 

 guests, I can furnish you with di prohatum est recipe, which the first-men- 

 tioned traveler tells us the Hungarian shepherds (who seem to have been 

 stupidly insensible to their value as alarums) find completely effectual to 

 put to flight these insects and their neighbors the lice. This is not, as 



