JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. xlvii 



is occasionally seen being no more comparable to that of the Elater 

 than a dying oil-lamp to a jet of pure gas. 



3. Scorpions. — Instances are given by the writer of these creatures 

 inflicting their stings in different situations : thus a lady was stung 

 by one in the finger whilst in the act of putting on her glove, into 

 which a scorpion had found its way. One of the writer's children was 

 stung whilst putting on his boot, into which a scorpion had crawled. 

 But the greatest number of scorpions which he ever encountered was 

 on board a vessel in Avhich he came home, which contained a great 

 quantity of logwood, in the crevices of which these noxious creatures 

 were concealed. During the voyage a child was stung on the upper 

 part of the thigh, a scorpion having crept up his trowsers ; the part 

 wounded was directly rubbed with rum in which scorpions had been 

 immersed, which is a favourite remedy with the sailors ; and the 

 writer had himself a narrow escape from a scorpion which had taken 

 up its quarters on his pillow through the night. He considers how- 

 ever that the effects of the sting of a scorpion do not usually much 

 exceed in severity that of a wasp. 



Flies. — The vn-iter states that in the course of his medical expe- 

 rience in Jamaica several distressing cases had occurred where flies 

 had deposited their eggs in the human body, either in the mucous 

 membrane lining the nose and mouth, in the passage of the ear, or 

 in ulcerated parts. In one instance he picked out about fifty large 

 larvae from a neglected blister on the chest of a young gentleman who 

 had fever with delirium ; the dressings being displaced through rest- 

 lessness, the blistered surface became exposed to the flies. Another 

 case was that of a gentleman, who towards the close of a protracted 

 and fatal illness had a number bred in the gums and inside the 

 cheeks, and which continued to make their appearance until his de- 

 cease. It is most probable that he had lain with his mouth open, 

 and had thus allowed an entry to the parent flies. Another instance 

 occurred in a j'oung gentleman who fell asleep under a tree after 

 bathing, when a fly deposited its eggs in his ear, causing severe suf- 

 fering when the eggs were hatched, and before the larvae were ex- 

 tracted. But the most extraordinary fact of this kind happened to 

 an intelligent negro man, whose eyes, nose and cheeks, when first 

 visited, were very much swollen, his face rendered quite hideous, 

 and his sufferings severe. Suspecting the cause, the writer injected 

 olive oil and green tobacco-juice up the nostrils, when the larvae be- 

 gan to drop out, but the whole were not removed from the nasal 

 passages in less than a fortnight. The man, at Mr. Sell's request, 

 kept a tally of their numbers, and it appeared that not fewer than 

 235 larvfe (of, he believes, the bluebottle fly,) made their appearance. 



T'2 



