DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 117 



-into his hiding-place ; and, in spite of the handkerchiefs 

 with which he had bound up his head, filled his mouth, 

 nostrils, and ears. In the midst of his torment he suc- 

 ceeded in lighting a lamp, which was extinguished in a 

 moment by such a prodigious number of these insects, 

 that their carcases actually filled the glass chimney, and 

 formed a large conical heap over the burner. The noise 

 they make in flying cannot be conceived by persons who 

 have only heard gnats in England. It is to all that hear 

 it a most fearful sound*. Travellers and mariners who 

 have visited warmer climates give a similar account of 

 the torments there inflicted by these little demons. One 

 traveller in Africa complains that after a fifty miles 

 journey they would not suffer him to rest, and that his 

 face and hands appeared, from their bites, as if he was 

 infected with the small-pox in its worst stage 5 . In the 

 East, at Batavia, Dr. Arnold, a most attentive and accu- 

 rate observer, relates that their bite is the most venomous 

 he ever felt, occasioning a most intolerable itching, which 

 lasts several days. The sight or sound of a single one 

 either prevented him from going to bed for a whole night, 

 or obliged him to rise many times. This species, which 

 I have examined, is distinct from the common gnat, and 

 appears to be nondescript. It approaches nearest to 

 C. annulatus, but the wings are black and not spotted. 

 And Captain Stedman in America, as a proof of the 

 dreadful state to which he and his soldiers were reduced 

 by them, mentions thai they were forced to sleep with 

 their heads thrust into holes made in the earth with 

 their bayonets, and their necks wrapped round with their 

 hammocks . 



* Dr. Clarke's Travels, i. 388. b Jackson's Marocco, 57. 



c Travels, ii. 93. Mr. W. S. MacLeay, in a letter I recently re- 



