AXTS AXD TERMITES. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 



INSECT PLAGUES AND INSECT SERVICES. 



[The Universal Dominion of Insects — Mosquitoes — Stinging Flies — (Estrus 

 Hoyninis — The Chegoe or Jigger — The FiJaria Medinensis —The Bete-Rouge— 

 Blood-sucking Ticks — Garapatas — The Land-leeches in Ceylon — The Tsetse 

 Fly — The Tsalt-Salya — The Locust — Its dreadful Devastations — Cockroaches — 

 The Drummer — The Cucarachas and Chilicabras — Tropical Ants— The Saiiba 

 — The Driver Ants — Termites — Their wonderful Buildings — The Silkworm — 

 The Cochineal — The Gumlac Insect — Insects used as Food and Ornaments. • 



THE insect tribes may, without exaggeration, be affirmed to 

 hold a kind of universal empire over the earth and its 

 [inhabitants, for nothing that possesses, or has possessed, life is 



secure from their attacks. They vanquish the cunning of the 

 [fox, the bulk of the elephant, the strength of the lion ; they 

 plague the reindeer of the northern tundras, and the antelope 

 [pf the African wilds ; and all the weapons with which Nature 



las furnished the higher orders of animals against their 

 mightier foes prove ineffectual against these puny persecutors, 

 whose very smallness serves to render them invincible. How 

 numerous are the sufferings they entail on man ! how manifold 

 the injuries they inflict on his person or his property ! To 

 secure himself from their attacks, a perpetual warfare, an ever- 



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