14() NA riJKAL HIS Toll V 



thing very analogous to the bustard, whom it also 

 somewhat resembles in aspect and make, and in the 

 structure of its feet. 



For a long time I have desired my relation to look 

 out for these birds in Andalusia; and now he v. rites 

 me word that, for the first time, he saw one dead in the 

 market on the 3rd of September. 



When the (Edicnemus flies it stretches out its 

 straight behind, like a heron. 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXXIV. 



TO THE SAME. 

 DEAM SIR, SELBORNE, March 30, 1771. 



THERE is an insect with us, especially on chalky dis- 

 tricts, which is very troublesome and teasing all the 

 latter end of the summer, getting into people's skins, 

 especially those of women and children, and raising 

 tumours which itch intolerably. This animal (which 

 we call a harvest bug) is very minute, scarce discerni- 

 ble to the naked eye, of a bright scarlet colour, and of 

 the genus of Acarus. They are to be met \vith in gar- 

 dens on kidney beans, or any legumens; but prevail 

 only in the hot months of summer. Warreners, as 

 some have assured me, are much infested by them on 

 chalky downs; where these insects swarm sometimes 

 to so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, and to 

 give them a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten 

 as to be thrown into fevers 1 . 



1 The harvest bug, as it is termed, is a very minute mite : it has been 

 figured by Shaw in his Naturalist's Miscellany, and also by Professor 

 Dume'ril in the Atlas of the Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles. On 

 account of its possessing only six legs Latreille removed it, (as well as 

 other mites which are similarly circumstanced,) from among the great 

 genus Acarus of Linnaeus : in his classification it is the Leptus autumnu- 

 lis. It seems, from the account given of it by M. Dumeril, to be as 



