DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 129 



to cover a man's body, turning a white dress into a black 

 one, occupying the whole atmosphere, filling the mouth, 

 nostrils, eyes, and ears of travellers, and thus preventing 

 respiration, and almost choking them. These little ani- 

 mals, he says, do not bite, but torture incessantly by 

 their titillation a . In New South Wales a small ant was 

 observed by Sir Joseph Banks, inhabiting the roots of a 

 plant, which when disturbed rushed out by myriads, and 

 running over the uncovered parts of the body produced 

 a sensation of this kind that was worse than pain. 



The common house-fly is with us often sufficiently 

 annoying at the close of summer ; but we know nothing 

 of it as a tormentor compared with the inhabitants of 

 southern Europe. " I met (says Arthur Young in his 

 interesting Travels through France] between Pradelles 

 and Thuytz, mulberries and flies at the same time ; by 

 the term j#z>s I mean those myriads of them which form 

 the most disagreeable circumstance of the southern cli- 

 mates. They are the first torments in Spain, Italy, and 

 the Olive district of France : it is not that they bite, sting, 

 or hurt, but they buzz, tease, and worry : your mouth, 

 eyes, ears, and nose, are full of them : they swarm on 

 every eatable, fruit, sugar, milk, every thing is attacked 

 by them in such myriads, that if they are not incessantly 

 driven away by a person who has nothing else to do, to 

 eat a meal is impossible. They are however caught on 

 prepared paper and other contrivances with so much 

 ease and in such quantities, that were it not from negli- 

 gence, they could not abound in such incredible quan- 

 tities. If I farmed in these countries, I think I should 



a Lack. Lapp. i. 208, 209. Fl. Lapp. 382, 383. It appears how- 

 ever, from other authors, that they do bite. 

 VOL. I. K 



