DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 61 



dowed with the privilege of resisting any degree of cold, and of bearing any 

 degree of heat. In Lapland their numbers are so prodigious as to be com- 

 pared to a flight of snow when the flakes fall thickest, or to the dust of the 

 earth. The natives cannot take a mouthful of food, or lie down to sleep 

 in their cabins, unless they be fumigated almost to suffocation. In the air 

 you cannot draw your breath without having your mouth and nostrils filled 

 with them ; and unguents of tar, fish-grease, or cream, or nets steeped in 

 fetid birch-oil, are scarcely sufficient to protect even the case-hardened 

 cuticle of the Laplander from their bite. 1 In certain districts of France, 

 the accurate Reaumur informs us that he has seen people whose arms and 

 legs have become quite monstrous from wounds inflicted by gnats ; and in 

 some cases^ in such a state as to render it doubtful whether amputation 

 would not be necessary. 2 In the neighbourhood of the Crimea the Russian 

 soldiers are obliged to sleep in sacks to defend themselves from the 

 mosquitos; and even this is not a sufficient security, for several of them 

 die in consequence of mortification produced by the bites of these furious 

 blood-suckers. This fact is related by Dr. Clarke, and to its probability 

 his own painful experience enabled him to speak. He informs us that the 

 bodies of himself and his companions, in spite of gloves, clothes, and 

 handkerchiefs, were rendered one entire wound, and the consequent 

 excessive irritation and swelling excited a considerable degree of fever. 

 In a most sultry night, when not a breath of air was stirring, exhausted by 

 fatigue, pain, and heat, he sought shelter in his carriage; and though 

 almost suffocated, could not venture to open a window for fear of the 

 mosquitos. Swarms nevertheless found their way 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, wh.ch 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. 3 Travel- 

 lers 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. 4 In the East, at Ba- 

 tavia, Dr. Arnold, a most attentive and accurate 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 that 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, 5 



1 Acerbi's Travels, ii. 5. 34, 35. 51. Linn. Flor. Lapp. 380, 381. Lack. Lapp. ii. 

 108. De Geer, vi. 303, 304. 2 Reaum. iv. 573. 



3 Dr. Clarke's Travels, i. 388. 4 Jackson's Marocco, 57. 



5 Travels, ii. 93. Mr. W. S. MacLeay, in a letter I received from him, ob- 





