CULICID^E — GNATS. " 281 



dreadful marches, the clouds of them were such, that the 

 soldiers dug holes with their ba3^oncts in the earth, into 

 which they thrust their heads, stopping the entry and cov- 

 ering their necks with their hammocks, while they lay with 

 their bellies on the ground : to sleep in any other position 

 was absolutely impossible. He himself, by a negro's ad- 

 vice, climbed to the top of the highest tree he could find, 

 and there slung his hammock among the boughs, and slept 

 exalted nearly a hundred feet above his companions, 

 ** whom." says he, "I could not see for the myriads of mos- 

 quitoes below me, nor even hear, from the incessant buzzing 

 of these troublesome insects."^ 



'' The Gnats in America," says Moufet, " do so plash and 

 cut, that they will pierce through very thick clothing ; so 

 that it is excellent sport to behold how ridiculously the bar- 

 barous people, when they are bitten, will skip and frisk, and 

 slap with their hands their thighs, buttocks, shoulders, arms, 

 and sides, even as a carter doth his horses."^ Isaac Weld 

 tells us that "these insects were so powerful and blood- 

 thirsty that they actually pierced through General Wash- 

 ington's boots. "^ They probably crept within the boots, 

 but the story is not incredible if we believe Moufet. This 

 naturalist says : " In Italy, near the Po, great store and 

 very great ones are to be seen, terrible for biting, and ven- 

 omous, piercing through a thrice-doubled stocking, and 

 boots likewise (morsu crudeles et venenati, triplices call- 

 gas, imo ocreas, item perf or antes), sometimes leaving be- 

 hind them impoysoned, hard, blue tumours, sometimes 

 painful bladders, sometimes itching pimples, such as Hip- 

 pocrates hath observed in his Epidemics, in the body of one 

 C3a'us, a fuller, being frantic."* 



"^The poet Spenser, in his Yiew of Ireland, says the Irish 

 " goe all naked except a mantle, which is a fit house for an 

 outlaw — a meet bed for a rebel — and an apt cloak for a 

 thiefe. It coucheth him strongly against the Gnats, which, 

 in that country, doe more to annoy the naked rebels, and 



1 Stedm. Surinam, ii. 93. 



2 Ins. Theatr., p. 82. 



3 Travels, 8vo. edit. p. 205. 

 *' Ins. Theatr., p. 81. 



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