92 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



ever horrible bugs may have been in the estimation of some, or nauseating 

 in that of others, many of the good people of Lonaon seem to regard 

 them with the greatest apathy, and take very httle pains to get rid of 

 them ; not generally, however, it is to be hoped, to such an extent as the 

 predecessor of a correspondent in Nicholson's Journal, who found his 

 house so dreadfully infested by them, that it resembled the Banian hospital 

 at Surat\ all his endeavors to destroy them being at 6rst in vain. And 

 no wonder ; for, as he learned from a neighbor, his predecessor would 

 never suffer them to be disturbed or his bedsteads to be removed, till, in 

 the end, they swarmed to an incredible degree, crawling up even the walls 

 of his drawing-room ; and after bis death millions were found in his bed 

 and chamber furniture.^ 



The winged insects of the order to which the bed-bug belongs, often 

 inflict very painful wounds, — I was once attacked by a small species, 

 near Cimex Nemorum L. {Hylophila K.), which put me nearly to as much 

 torture as the sting of a wasp. The water boatman (^Notonecta glauca), 

 an insect related to the CimicidcB, which always swims upon its back, 

 made me suffer still more severely, as if I had been burned, by the inser- 

 tion of its rostrum ; but the wound was not followed by any inflammation ; 

 and loner before me Willughby had made the same discovery and obser- 

 vation.^ St. Pierre, in his Voyage to Mauritius, mentions a species of 

 bug found in that island, the bite of which is more venomous than the 

 sting of a scorpion, and is succeeded by a tumor as big as the egg of a 

 pigeon, which continues for four or five days.'* You are well acquainted 

 with the history and properties of the Raia Torpedo and Gymnotus elec- 

 tricus ; but I dare aver, have no idea that any insect possesses their extra- 

 ordinary powers. — Yet I can assure you, upon good authority, that Redu/- 

 vius serratus, commonly known in the West Indies by the name of the 

 wheel-bug, can, like them, communicate an electric shock to the person 

 whose flesh it touches. The late Major-general Davies, of the Royal 

 Artillery, well known as a most accurate observer of nature, and an inde- 

 fatigable collector of her treasures, as well as a most admirable painter of 

 them, once informed me, that when abroad, having taken up this animal 

 and placed it upon his hand, it gave him a considerable shock, as if from 

 an electric jar, with its legs, which he felt as high as his shoulders ; and, 

 dropping the creature, he observed six marks upon his hand where the six 

 feet had stood.^ 



1 The Banian hospital at Sural is a most remarkable institution. At my visit, the hospi- 

 tal contained horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, monkeys, poultry, pigeons, and a variety 

 of birds. The most extraordinary ward was that appropriated to rats and mice, bugs, and 

 other noxious vermin. The overseers of the hospital frequently hire beggars from the 

 streets, for a stipulated sum, to pass a night amongst thefeas, lice, and bugs, on the express 

 condition of suflering them to enjoy their feast without molestation. Forbes's Oriental 

 Memoirs. 



* Nicholson's Journal, irii. 40. 



3 Proboscis in cutem intrusa acerrimum dolorem excitat, qui tamen brcvi cessat. Rai, 

 Hist. Ins. 58. 



* The Benchucha, or great black bug of the Pampas of South America, a species of 

 Reduvius, is a far more obnoxious species than our common bed bug. See C. Darwin's 

 Personal Narrative, iii. 403. 



* Two similar instances of effects on the human system, resembling electric shocks, pro- 

 duced by insects, have been communicated to the Entomological Society by Mr. Yarrell ; 

 one, mentioned in a letter from Lady de Grey, of Groby, in which the shock was caused by 

 a beetle, one of the common Elaterida, and extended from the hand to the elbow on sud- 



