DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 103 



may shoot at them with a cannon, as report says did 

 Christina Queen of Sweden, whose piece of artillery, 

 of Liliputian calibre, which was employed in this war- 

 fare, is still exhibited in the arsenal of Stockholm^. 

 But, seriously, if you wish for an effectual remedy, 

 that prescribed by old Tusser, in the followiDg lines, 

 will answer your purpose : 



" While wormwood hath seed, get a handfull or twaine. 

 To save against March, to make flea to rcfraine : 

 Where chamber is sweeped, and wormwood is strown, 

 No flea for his life dare abide to be knownc." 



To this genus belongs an insect, abundant in the 

 West Indies and South America, the attacks of which 

 are infinitely more serious than those of the common 

 flea. You will readily conjecture that I am speaking of 

 tlie celebrated Chigoe or Jiggers, called also Nigua, 

 Tungun, and Pique^, (Pulex penetrans, L.,) one of 

 the direst personal pests with which the sins of man 

 have been visited. All disputes concerning the genus 

 of this insect would have been settled long before 

 Swartz's time (who first gave a satisfactory description 

 and figure of it, proving it to be a Pulex, as has been 

 observed above %) had success attended the patriotic 

 attempt of the Capuchin friar recorded by Walton in 

 his Histort/ of St. Domingo, who brought away with 

 him from that island a colony of these animals, which 

 he permitted to establish themselves in one of his feet ; 



^ Linn. Lack. Lapp. ii. 32, note *. 



'' Latreille supposes the Pique and Nigua to be synonymous with ^ca« 

 rus AmericarMs, L. Hist. Nat. vii, 364. — The Chigoe also he calls an Aca^ 

 rus. Ibid. 390. " See above, p. 50. 



