DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 11& 



bayonets, and their necks wrapped round with their 

 hammocks'^. 



It is not therefore incredible that Sapor, king- of 

 Persia, as is related, should have been compelled to 

 raise the siege of Nisibis by a plague of gnats, which 

 attacking- his elephants and beasts of burthen, so caus- 

 ed the rout of his array, whatever we may think of the 

 miracle to which it was attributed^; nor that the in- 

 habitants of various cities, as MoufFet has collected 

 from different authors *", should, by an extraordinary 

 multiplication of this plague, have been compelled to 

 desert them ; or that by their power to do mischief, 

 like otlier conquerors who have been the torment of 

 the human race, they should have attained to fame, 

 and have given their name to bays, towns, and even to 

 considerable territories '\ 



And now, which seems to you the greater terror, 

 that the forest should resound with the roar of the lion 

 or the tiger, or with the hum of the gnat ? Which 

 evil is most to be deprecated, the neighbourhood of 

 these ferocious animals, terrible as they are for their 

 cruelty and strength, or to live amidst the polar or 

 tropical myriads of mosquitos, and be subject to the 

 torture of their incessant attacks ? When you con- 

 sider that from the one prudence and courage may 

 secure or defend us without any material sacrifice of 

 our daily comforts ; while to be at rest from the other 

 we must either render ourselves disgusting- by filthy 



'^ Trauels,n.93. * Theodorit. //«/. £ccZ. 1. ii. c. 30. 



* Mouffet, 85. Amoreux, 119. 



" Viz. Mosqidto Bay in St. Christopher's; Mosquitos, a town in the 

 Island of Cuba ; and the Mosquito country in North America. 



