134 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



times even water in the casks of ships, in long voyages, so abounds with 

 larvae of this tribe as to render it extremely disgusting. Browne, in his 

 History of Jamaica, mentions an ant (Formica omnivora L.), probably be- 

 longing to Myrmica, that consumes or spoils all kinds of food; which 

 perhaps may be the same species that has been observed in Ceylon by 

 Percival, and is described by him as inhabiting dwelling-houses, and 

 speedily devouring every thing it can meet with. If at table any one drops 

 a piece of bread, or of other food, it instantly appears in motion as if 

 animated, from the vast number of these creatures that fasten upon it in 

 order to carry it off. They can be kept, he tells us, by no contrivance 

 from invading the table, and settling in swarms on the bread, sugar, and 

 such things as they like. It is not uncommon to see a cup of tea, upon 

 being poured out, completely covered with these creatures, and floating 

 dead upon it like a scum. 1 



In some countries the number of flies and other insects that enter the 

 house in search of food, or allured by the light, is so great as to spoil the 

 comfort of almost every meal. We are told that during the rainy season 

 in India, insects of all descriptions are so incredibly numerous, and so 

 busy every where, that it is often absolutely necessary to remove the lights 

 from the supper table: were this not done, moths, flies, bugs, beetles, 

 and the like, would be attracted in such numbers as to extinguish them 

 entirely. When the lights are retained on the table, in some places they 

 are put into glass cylinders, which St. Pierre tells us is the custom in the 

 Island of Mauritius 2 ; in others the candlesticks are placed in soup plates, 

 into which the insects are precipitated and drowned. Nothing can exceed 

 the irritation caused by the stinking bugs when they get into the hair or 

 between the linen and the body ; and if they be bruised upon it the skin 

 comes off. 3 To use the language of a poet of the Indies from whom some 

 of the above facts are selected, 



" On every dish the booming beetle falls, 

 The cockroach plays, or caterpillar crawls: 

 A thousand shapes of variegated hues 

 Parade the table or inspect the stews. 

 To living 'walls the swarming hundreds stick, 

 Or court a dainty meal, the oily wick : 

 Heaps over heaps their slimy bodies drench, 

 Out go the lamps with suffocating stench. 

 When hideous insects every plate defile, 

 The laugh how empty and how forced the smile !"* 



far as they were unimpregnated with the wine ; but finding the sweet flavour of the 

 Persian shiraz and old hock more to their taste, had encroached upon the corks of 

 these so deeply as to allow the wine to escape. A few individuals of two minute 

 beetles Cryptophagus cellaris and Myccetcea hirta, a minute Acarus, and Atropos lig- 

 narius, were found on the corroded corks, but seem more likely to have been 

 attracted by the oozing wine than to have originally caused the damage. ( Trans. 

 Ent. Soc. Lond. i. proc. Iv.) Mr. Thwaites suggests that Slaps mortisaga is more 

 likely to have eaten the corks than cockroaches, which do not usually frequent 

 cellars, whereas the former are found very generally in those of Bristol ; and, as he 

 has observed the stomach of the individuals of these insects which he dissected to be 

 filled with what seemed saw-dust, they may probably also eat corks, which indeed 

 he found they did on putting them into a box along with the insects. 



1 Ceylon, 307. 2 Voyage, &c. 72. 



5 Williamson's East India Vade Mecum. 4 Calcutta, a Poem, 85. 



