248 THE INSECT PLAGUES OF THE TROPICAL WORLD 



times even prove fatal. Thus, in tropical America, we find 

 the same insect tribe which plagues our oxen and horses, 

 and reduces the northern reindeer to desperation, settle on 

 man himself, and render even the- lord of the creation subject 

 to its power. 



The Chegoe, Pique, or Jigger of the West Indies {Pulex pene- 

 trans)^ is another great torment of the hot countries of America. 

 It looks exactly like a small flea, and a stranger would take it for 

 one. However, in about four and twenty hours he would have 

 several broad hints that he had made a mistake in his ideas of 

 the animal. Without any respect for colour, it attacks different 

 parts of the body, but chiefly the feet, betwixt the toe-nails and 

 the flesh. There it buries itself and causes an itching, which 

 at first is not unpleasant, but after a few days gradually in- 

 creases to a violent pain. At the same time a small white 

 tumour, about the size of a pea, and with a dark spot in the 

 centre, rises under the skin. The tumour is the rapidly growing 

 nest of the chegoe, the spot the little plague itself. And now 

 it is high time to think of its extirpation, an operation in 

 which the negro women are very expert. Gently removing with 

 a pin the skin from the little round white ball or nest, precisely 

 as we should peel an orange, and pressing the flesh all round, 

 they generally succeed in squeezing it out without breaking, and 

 then fill the cavity with snuff or tobacco, to guard against the 

 possibility of a fresh colony being formed by some of the eggs 

 remaining in the wound. New comers are particularly subject 

 to these creatures. Mr. Waterton, who by practise appears to 

 have become very expert in eradicating chegoes' nests, once took 

 four out of his feet in the course of the day, and a negress 

 extracted no less than eighty-three out of Richard Schomburgk's 

 toes in one sitting. " Every evening," says the venerable natu- 

 ralist of Walton Hall, "before suodown, it was part of my toilet 

 to examine my feet and see that they were clear of chegoes. 

 Now and then a nest would escape the scrutiny, and then I had 

 to smart for it a day or two after. A chegoe once bit upon the 

 back of my hand : wishful to see how he worked, I allowed him 

 to take possession. He immediately set to work head foremost, 

 and in about half an hour he had completely buried himself 

 in the skin. I then let him feel the point of my knife, and ex- 

 terminated him." 



