96 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



in the year 1766, in the month of August, they appqjired in such incredi- 

 ble numbers at Oxford as to resemble a black cloud, darkening the air and 

 almost totally intercepting the bean)s of the sun. One day, a little before 

 sunset, six columns of them "were obser\:ed to ascend from the boughs of 

 an apple-tree, some in a perpendicular and others in an oblique direction, 

 to the height of fifty or sixty feet. Their bite was so envenomed, that it 

 was attended by violent and alarming inflammation ; and one when killed 

 usually contained as much blood as would cover three or four square 

 inches of wall.^ Our great poet Spenser seems to have witnessed a simi- 

 lar appearance of them, which furnished him with the following beautiful 

 simile : — 



As when a sw&rrae of gnats at eventide 

 Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise, 

 Their murmuring small trumpets sownden wide, 

 Whiles in the air their clust'ring army flies, 

 That as a cloud doth seem to dim the skies j 

 Ne man nor beast may rest or lake repast 

 For their sharp wounds and noyous injuries. 

 Till the fierce northern wind with blusi'ring blast 

 Doth blow them quite away, and in the ocean cast. 



In Marshland in Norfolk, as I learn from a lady who had an opportunity 

 of personal inspection, the inhabitants are so annoyed by the gnats, that 

 the better sort of them, as in many hot climates, have recourse to a gauze 

 covering for their beds, to keep them off during the night. Whether this 

 practice obtains in other fen districts I do not know.^ 



But these evils are of small account compared with what other countries, 

 especially when we approach the poles or the line, are destined to suffer 

 from them : for there they interfere so much with ease and comfort, as to be- 

 come one of the worst of pests and a real misery of human life. We may be 

 disposed to smile perhaps at the story Mr. Weld relates from General Wash- 

 ington, that in one place the mosquitos were so powerful as to pierce through 

 his boots^ (probably they crept within the boots) : but in various regions 

 scarcely any thing less impenetrable than leather can withstand their insinuat- 

 ing weapons and unwearied attacks. One would at first imagine that regions 

 where the polar winter extends its icy reign would not be much annoyed 

 by insects : but however probable the supposition, it is the reverse of fact, 

 for nowhere are gnats more numerous. These animals, as well as num- 

 bers of the Tipularice of Latreille, seem endowed with the privilege of 

 resisting any degree of cold, and of bearing any degree of heat. In 

 Lapland their numbers are so prodigious as to be compared to a flight of 

 snow when the flakes fall thickest, or to the dust of the earth. The 

 natives cannot take a mouthful of food, or lie down to sleep in their 

 cabins, unless they be fumigated almost to suffocation. In the air you 

 cannot draw your breath without having your mouth and nostrils filled 

 with them ; and unguents of tar, fish-grease, or cream, or nets steeped in 

 fetid birch-oil, are scarcely sufficient to protect even the case-hardened 



' Philos. Trans. 1767, HI. 113. I once witnessed a similar appearance at Maidstone 

 in Kent. 



* A small British species of Ceratopogon (one of the midge family of Tipulida) is occa- 

 sionally very troublesome by settling upon the uncovered parts of the body and sucking 

 the blood. 



3 Weld's Travels, 8vo. edit. 205. Yet Mouffet affirms the same : " Morsu crudeles et 

 venenati, triplices caligas, imo ocreas, item perforantes." 81. 



