8 Mr. W. B. Spence on a Passage in Herodotus. 



" But against the gnats, being in great numbers, these are the 

 means they have invented : the towers are of service to those who 

 inhabit the upper parts of the marshes, and ascending into them, they 

 sleep there, for the gnats, on account of the winds, are not able to fly 

 high. But those who live around the marshes have invented other 

 means instead of towers. Every man of them possesses a casting- 

 net, with which during the day he catches fishes, and at night he 

 makes use of it in the bed where he reposes, round which he places 

 the net, and then, having crept under it, he sleeps. But the gnats, 

 if he sleeps wrapped up in a woollen or linen garment, bite through 

 these, but through the net they do not even attempt to bite." 



From this passage, then, it is clear that Herodotus afiirms the same 

 fact with regard to the Egyptian Conopes (which, both from what he 

 says of their frequenting marshes and biting by night and the re- 

 cieved interpretation of the word, there can be no doubt were one 

 or more species of gnat, musquitoe, or Culex,) as has been observed 

 of the house-fly, namely, that they will not pass through the meshes 

 of a net although the space is sufficiently large to admit them. If 

 Herodotus had mentioned merely a net, one might have supposed that 

 he meant some very thin gauze or other net-like substance, such as 

 the gnat-curtains are made of at the present day ; but he says it 

 was a casting-net (aju.ipj'S'Xijo-rcov) used by fishermen, and must have 

 had meshes much wider than sufficient to admit a gnat ; nor, I think, 

 can there be even a shadow of doubt on this head, when we consider 

 that he adds that they bite through linen and woollen coverings, and 

 yet do not even attempt to bite through the net ; which circumstance 

 seems to prove that he was struck with this as a curious fact, which he 

 imparts to his readers in his usual concise manner. It will also be 

 seen from the expression used, that the net was not merely laid on 

 the bed as a covering, but sustained by some support, (as a pole or 

 bedstead,) so as to form a kind of tent, into which form the casting- 

 net from its shape could be easily arranged, and under which the fisher- 

 men then crept, and thus slept secure from their formidable as- 

 sailants. This is also the meaning attributed to the passage in 

 Schweighajuser, who says, " lecto circumponit rete, deinde subrepens 

 sub illo dormit." Thus it would seem that the beds so covered 

 agreed in all essential points with the Florentine rooms, of which 

 the open windows had nets stretched across them, the gnats in the 

 one case being asserted by Herodotus to be kept out under nearly 

 the same circumstances as the flies are known to be excluded in the 

 other. 



But here an objection may arise : May not this coincidence be ac- 

 cidental ? Can we be sure that if flies are excluded by nets, gnats 



