DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 141 



and extremely active, writhing itself into various con- 

 tortions with great agility. It moved, like other di- 

 pterous larvae, by means of its mandibles. Upon wet- 

 ting- my fingers more than once, to take it up wlien it 

 had fallen from a table upon which it was placed, the 

 saline tarte with which it was imbued w as so pow er- 

 ful that it was some time before it was dissipated from 

 my mouth. — I shall only mention one raore instance, 

 because it is a singular one. The larva of Elopkihts 

 penduhiSy F., a fly peculiarly formed by nature for in- 

 habiting fluids, has been found in the stomach of a 

 woman ". 



You will smile when I tell you that I have met with 

 the prescription of a famous urine-doctor, in which he 

 recommends to his credulous patient to take a certain 

 number of soxo-hugs per diem, by this name distin- 

 guishing, as I suppose, Oniscus Armadillo, L., once a 

 very favourite remedy. What effect they produced in 

 this case I was not informed ; but the learned Bonnet 

 relates that he had seen a certiticate of an English 

 physician, dated July 1763, stating that, some time 

 before, a young woman who had swallowed these ani- 

 mals alive, as is usually done, threv/ up a prodigious 

 number of them of all sizes, which must have bred in 

 her stomach''. — Another apterous species appeai-s to 

 have been detected in a still more remarkable situa- 

 tion. Hermann, the author of tlie admirable B'lemoire 

 Apterologique, whose untimely death is so much to be 

 lamented, informs us that an Acarus figured and de- 

 scribed in his work (A. marginatus, H.) was observed 



" Pkilos. Mag. ix. S66. " Bonnet, v. 144. 



