220 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. VI. 



parasitical on the human body, should leave its habitual 

 food, and voluntarily seek nourishment for its progeny 

 from a totally different quarter. Certain, however, it 

 is, that larvae or maggots have been ejected from the 

 stomach, or have bred in the corrupting flesh of living 

 subjects. Several instances of this sort are mentioned 

 by Messrs. Kirby and Spence. There seems abundant 

 evidence to prove, beyond controversy, that the meal- 

 worm (Tenebrio Molitor Lin.), although its usual food 

 is flour, has often been voided by male and female pa- 

 tients, and in one instance is stated to have occasioned 

 death ; yet how these grubs could get into the stomach, 

 it is difficult to say. Lister, a naturalist and physician 

 of the highest authority, mentions the case of a girl 

 who voided three hexapod larvae, probably belonging to 

 the genus Dermestes or Byrrhus ; and by the same 

 author we are told of a boy who vomited up several 

 caterpillars, which, he observes, had sixteen legs. Lin- 

 naeus tells us that the larva of a little moth, common in 

 houses (Crambus pinguinalis Fab.) has also been found 

 in a similar situation, and is one of the worst of our 

 insect infesters. 



(233.) Azara, the natural historian of Paraguay, 

 relates the following extraordinary circumstance. He 

 assures us that there is in South America a large brown 

 moth, which deposits its young in a kind of saliva 

 upon the flesh of persons who sleep naked j these in- 

 troduce themselves under the skin without being per- 

 ceived, occasioning swelling, attended with inflammation 

 and violent pain. When the natives discover it, they 

 squeeze out the larvee, which usually amount to five or 

 six. Mr. Kirby very judiciously remarks upon this 

 statement, " I cannot help suspecting this to be syno- 

 nymous with the (Estrus Hominis* This latter insect, 

 indeed, belongs to those which really feed upon man. 

 It is the gadfly, in fact, of the human species, which 

 infests the inhabitants of South America. Humboldt 

 and Bonpland inform us that this fly is found in the 



- * Int. to Ent. vol. i. p. 136, 



