100 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



or was not able to trace out, her less prominent features 

 and minor lineaments. 



It is now time to return from this long digression, 

 which however is closely connected with the subject of 

 this letter, to the point from which I deviated. Taking 

 my leave of the disgusting animals which gave rise to it, 

 I proceed to call your attention to another of our pygmy 

 tormentors, (Pulex irritans,) which, in the opinion of 

 some, seems to have been regarded as an agreeable 

 rather than a repulsive object. " Dear miss," said a 

 lively old lady to a friend of mine, (who had the misfor- 

 tune to be confined to her bed by a broken limb, and was 

 complaining that the fleas tormented her,) " don't you 

 \\kejleas? Well, I think they are the prettiest little 

 merry things in the world. I never saw a dull flea in 

 all my life." The celebrated Willughby kept a favourite 

 flea, which used at stated times to be admitted to suck 

 the palm of his hand ; and enjoyed this privilege for three 

 months, when the cold killed it. And Dr. Townson, from 

 the encomium which he bestows upon these vigilant little 

 vaulters, as supplying the place of an alarum and driving 

 us from the bed of sloth, should seem to have regarded 

 them with feelings much more complacent than those of 

 Dr. Clarke and his friends, when their hopes of passing 

 " one night free from the attacks of vermin" were 

 changed into despair by the information of the laughing 

 Sheik, that " the king of the fleas held his court at Ti- 

 berias :" or than those of MM. Lewis and Clarke, who 

 found them more tormenting than all the other plagues 

 of the Missouri country, where they sometimes compel 

 even the natives to shift their quarters. If you un- 



