PEDICULIDiE LICE. 317 



Ojeda, and another of Cortes' soldiers, named Alonzo de 

 Mata, who were eye-witnesses of the fact.^ 



Oviedo pretends to have observed that Lice, at the eleva- 

 tion of the tropics, abandon the Spanish sailors that are 

 going to the Indies, and attack them again at the same point 

 on their return. The same is reported in Purchas's Pil- 

 grims.2 One of the supplementary writers to Cuvier's His- 

 tory of Insects says: "This is an observation that has need 

 of being corroborated by more certain testimonies than we 

 are yet in possession of. But, if true, there would be nothing 

 in the fact very surprising. A degree of considerable heat, 

 and a more abundant perspiration, might prove unfavorable 

 to the propagation of the Pediculi corporis. As their 

 skin is more tender, the influence of the air might prove 

 detrimental to them in those burning climates."^ 



We read in Purchas's Pilgrims, that "if Lice doe much 

 annoy the natives of Cambaia and Malabar, they call to 

 them certain Religious and holy men, after their account : 

 and these Observants y will take upon them all those Lice 

 which the other can find, and put them on their head, there 

 to nourish them. But yet for all this lousie scruple, they 

 stick not to coozeuage by falese weights, measures, and coyne, 

 nor at usury and lies."^ 



In a side-note to this curious passage, we find : "The like 

 lousie trick is reported in the Legend of S. Fraiicis, and in 

 the life of Ignatius, of one of the Jesuitical pillars, by 

 Moffseus." 



Steedman says of the Caffres, that "except an occasional 

 plunge in a river, they never wash themselves, and conse- 

 quently their bodies are covered with vermin. On a fine day 

 their karosses are spread out in the sun, and as their torment- 

 ors creep forth they are doomed to destruction. It often hap- 

 pens that one Cafifir performs for another the kind office of 

 collecting these insects, in which case he preserves the ento- 

 mological specimens, carefully delivering them to the person 



1 Bernal Diaz' Conquest of Mexico, i. 394, note 54. This story, no 

 doubj^, is founded on something like truth, and most probably these 

 bags were filled with ihe. Coccus cacti, the Cochineal insect, then un- 

 known to the Spaniards, who might have easily mistaken them in 

 a dried state for Lice. 



2 Filg., iii. 975. 



3 Cuv. An. King. — Ins., i. 163. 

 * Pilg., V. 542. 



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