17936 curious phenomena in natural history. 199 
Now, a mote speculative man than your corres 
spondent, might hazard a conjecture, that the gaat 
milk cheese, so favourite a food with both the A- 
cart, and the inhabitants of mountains; may in some 
measure account for the superior prevalency of the 
itch in those regions ; if the fact is true, which I 
must own I doubt, from my observations in one of 
the flattest countries of the world, and which certain- 
ly does not yield, as hinted above, in that respect, to® 
any elevation above the level of the sea, which the 
barometer can point out, whilst one of our Rufsian 
pustles would hold half 4 dozen of your’s in its cir- 
cumference. 
Man may likewise dtaw great advantages, as well 
as security, from the study of insects ; for, to pafs 
over the well known and valuable silk-worm, the 
cochineal, lac, and gall insects, &c. he might even save 
alight, upon some occasions, by naturalizing the cu- 
rious’ CICADA dZanternaria of Sursnam ; an insect 
something resembling a locust, which carries a na 
tural lanthorn on its head, sufficient to light you 
‘about the streets the darkest night in winter. 
In fhort, was one only to hint in pafsing, ¥ Ian 
doing, at the multitude of striking and curious phe~ 
“nomena in the history of insects, it would swell a 
paper to a volume ; as it would be impofsible to pafs 
unnoticed, the showers of blood, related as prodigies 
by even grave historians, which we now know to 
have proceedéd from the excrement of a flight of the 
comma butterfly (cadum of Linneus) ; the no lefs 
Sinister presage of the sea turned to blood, caused by 
myriads of the red monoc (monucuLus pulex); the 
