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CHAPTER XXII. 



THE INSECT PLAGUES OF THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



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

 Hominis — The Chegoe or Jigger — The Filaria Medinensis — The Bete-Rouge — 

 Blood-sucking Ticks — Garapatas — The Land-leeches in Ceylon — The Tsets6 

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

 roaches — The Drummer — The Cucarachas and Chilicabras. 



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 

 of the African wilds ; and all the weapons with which nature 

 has furnished the higher orders of animals against their mightier 

 foes prove ineffectual against these puny persecutors, whose 

 very smallness serves to render them invulnerable. How nume- 

 rous are the sufferings they entail on man ! how manifold the 

 injuries they inflict on his person or his property I To secure 

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

 vigilance, is necessary ; for, though destroyed by thousands, new 

 legions ever make their appearance, and to repose after a victory 

 is equivalent to a defeat. 



In our temperate zone, where a higher cultivation of the 

 ground tends to keep down the number of the lower animals, 

 their persecutions, though frequently annoying, may still be 

 borne with patience ; but in the tropical regions, where man 

 is generally either too indolent or not sufficiently numerous to 

 set bounds to their increase, the insects constitute one of the 

 great plagues of life. 



