, 80 



them incapable of yielding any of that rich juice from whence this vegetable salt is 

 extracted. 



" In consequence of this mischievous quality, estates which, by their usual produce, have 

 cleared to the proprietors eight or ten thousand pounds a year, when overrun by these 

 vermin, have not been able to pay the expense of cultivation, except the produce has been 

 changed by planting cotton or indigo, which have been found to suffer much less from their 

 depredations ; but, unhappily, most of the planters were ruined before they could submit 

 to give up the cultivation of sugar, which is by much the most profitable. 



" It is not to be supposed, that hot countries are at all times infested to this degree. 

 They never are, however, without an astonishing number of these insects, which no art, 

 labour, or expense, can totally exclude from the dwellings of the inhabitants. The num- 

 ber of different species is not yet known, and is so great, added to the minuteness of most 

 of them, that it probably never will be discovered with any degree of certainty. There 

 are not less than fifteen or twenty species, which find their way into the houses. These 

 are not only to be distinguished by their size, figure, and colour, but by their different pro- 

 perties. Some are near an inch long, from which, to that of being scarce visible to the 

 naked eye, are various sizes. Some are long and slender, others short and thick; some 

 are elegantly shaped and highly polished ; while others are, according to vulgar apprehen- 

 sions, deformed, armed with spines, and covered with bristly or coarse and rough skins. 

 Some species also are black as the deepest jet : others of the deepest bro-mi, or of different 

 shades till they approach to yellow ; and not a few are variegated, having some of the 

 prismatic colours in full glow. They vary as much in their nature and dispositions : some 

 destroy fresh collected plants ; and, in spite of weights laid upon the books in which they 

 are placed to dry, get in, cut the leaves and flowers in pieces, and carry them away. 

 Others, of different species, attack all sorts of victuals, particularly sweet things, such as 

 sugar and fi'uits. Mr. Smeathman has had large sugar-dishes emptied by these insects in 

 one night, when the least opening has been left ; and it is not easy to make any tin canis- 

 ter, or other vessel, close enough to exclude these insidious plunderers ; so that the loss 

 sustained in this article is often very great. Some of them will assail the side-boards, and 

 cover every wine-glass that has had wine or punch left in it ; nay, innumerable multitudes 

 will even attack the liquors on your table, and, if you are not attentive, drovMi themselves 

 in the very bowls and bottles before you. Some stragglers fi'equently disturb you bv creep- 

 ing over your skin, and interrupt your sleep or your meditations by biting, which, however, 

 give pain but for a moment ; while others, though of the smallest size, with a sort of 

 malignant vengeance, creep under your clothes, and, by means of stings in\-isible to the 

 unassisted eye, inject a most acrid venom, which causes a pain as sharp as a small spark of 

 fire, lasting for some hours, and even a day or two after being stung, the pain of which is 

 much increased by irritating the part. Some of the larger sorts also cause bv their stino-s 

 a pain which, for some moments, is scarcely less than that of a bee of the same size ; but it 



