INSECT LIFE ON THE TREE TOPS. 153 



History teaches us, for instance, that some centuries 

 back, when England was more or less a forest country, 

 and before it had been generally drained and cultiva- 

 ted, fever and ague was ihen very prevalent. King 

 James I. died of it, and so did Oliver Cromwell ; * and 

 the ancient records prove that in certain parts of the 

 country it was sometime: 1 , present in a very severe and 

 fatal form, f And it is so now in many parts of the 

 North American newly settled lands, though, of course, 

 its ravages are largely controlled since the discovery of 

 quinine, so that " the chills" are now not near so much 

 dreaded as they formerly were. As a rule, hawever, 

 the forest region in this part of the world, especially 

 the pine forest, is free from malarial disease, or at least 

 from diseases which we can say are of undoubted ma- 

 larial origin; but attacks of diseases of various kinds, 

 many of which may be suspected to arise from malaria, 

 are very apt to appear in all recently settled countries, 

 as soon as the forest is cut down and the soil turned 

 up. The history of the early settlements in America 

 and elsewhere is full of experiences which place this 

 fact beyond controversy. 



But besides those tormenting insect pests, some of 

 whom live on malarial germs, whose bites are so irritat- 

 ing, and which, as we have pointed out, mostly keep 

 within a short distance of the ground, there are the winged 

 multitudes of flying creatures, most of whom are harm- 

 less to man, which inhabit the higher regions of the tree 



* So also Queen Mary ('Bloody Mary'), we can have no doubt after 

 considering the circumstances of her death, was cut off by an illness 

 resulting from, or at any rate complicated by, malarial disease. 



7 Dictionary of Medicine, by Richard Quain, F.R.S., Vol. ii., p. 915 

 (Article on "Malaria"). See also Tanner's Practice of Medicine, 5th 

 edition, p. 173 (Article "Intermittent Fever"). 



