378 FURY, OR FARIA. 



for if, by being too much strained, the animal should break, the 

 part remaining under the skin grows with redoubled vigour, and 

 often occasions a fatal inflammation. It is frequently twelve feet 

 long, and not larger than a horse-hair. 



[Syst. Nat. Turton. Sloane. 



3. Fury, or Furia. 



Furia infernalis. Linn. 



There is only one species of this genus ; and it is denominated, 

 Fury, not without good reason, if we may rely on the accounts 

 which have been given of the torments it sometimes inflicts on the 

 person it happens to attack. Its character is a thin, thread-shaped 

 body, edged along each side with a row of sharp, reversed prickles, 

 lying close to the edge of the body, or at very acute angles. It 

 bears a resemblance therefore to a minute scolopendra, or centipede; 

 and from the structure of its body, is enabled to perforate the skin 

 in an instant, so as not to be extracted without extreme difficulty. It 

 is pretended that this worm, in the marshy parts of Sweden, and 

 some other countries, is conveyed by some means or other through 

 the air, and drops on the bodies of cattle and men; producing 

 almost immediately a pain so insupportable, as sometimes to prove 

 fatal in the space of a quarter of an hour. Linnaeus tells us that 

 he himself once experienced the effects of this animal, near the city 

 of Lund, in Sweden. Dr. Solander once gave a slight description 

 of this worm j but from the difficulty of obtaining recent specimens, 

 its nature is still obscure; and even its very existence has been 

 occasionally doubted ; particularly by Blumenbach and Muller. 

 There seems, however, to be no good reason for questioning the 

 existence of some such animal, though the accounts of its extraor- 

 dinary qualities may have been exaggerated. The best account of 

 it is in a quarto pamphlet, published by a Dr. Hagen, as an aca- 

 demical thesis : in which all the observations relative to it are sum- 

 med up in a concise manner, and its real existence, seemingly, well 

 ascertained. It is said to be generally about three-quarters of an 

 inch long. 



{Muller, Shaw. 



