198 Mr. W. Sells’s Observations upon the Chigoe. 
posed to the invasion of Chigoes, and instances are quite common 
where, at one sitting, ten or twenty have been extracted from the 
toes and sides of the feet. I have known several cases in which, 
owing to long continued neglect, extensive swelling and inflam- 
mation have supervened, followed by much ulceration ; and in bad 
habits of body, even by the loss of one or more joints of the toes. 
Sometimes the hands are affected, and, though more rarely, the 
face, when the sufferer presents a hideous and disgusting appear- 
ance, being then, as the phrase was, ‘eaten up with Chigoes.' 
Chigoes abound particularly in hen-houses, and in the dust of 
the dry coffee-pulp. 
Dogs and pigs not uncommonly suffer from Chigoes ; the poor 
dog will nibble and lick his paw most perseveringly to rid himself 
of his tormenters, but very often in vain, and will then proclaim 
his trouble by whining piteously, and thus often excites the com- 
passion of his master, who summons some one to relieve him ‘ se- 
cundum artem.’ 
The only notices appertaining to this insect which my books 
afford me are in Rees' Cyclopcedia, and in Ulloa’s Voyage to South 
America. The former, under the article Pulex — P. Penetrans, de- 
scribes the Chigoe as “ having a proboscis as long as the body, 
which latter is reddish brown ; the abdomen of the gravid female 
is orbicular and swollen to 100 times its natural size.” Ulloa 
says, “ the insect of Carthagena called Nigua, and in Peru Pique , 
is shaped like a flea, but almost too small for sight it takes its 
lodging in the true skin, where “ it forms a nidus or nest covered 
with a white and fine tegument resembling a flat pearl, and the in- 
sect is, as it were, inchased in one of its faces, with its head and 
feet outwards, for the convenience of feeding, while the hinder 
part of the body is within the tunic.” — Ulloa' s Voyage, vol. i. 
p. 65. 
The specimens sent herewith were imported by me last year from 
Jamaica ; two of them appear very fresh and perfect, as though 
they had been removed skilfully, and directly put in spirits ; the 
others were probably moistened w T ith blood during extraction, and 
thus became discoloured. 
