DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 97 



cuticle of the Laplander from their bite.^ In certain districts of France, 

 the accurate Reaumur informs us that he has seen people whose arms 

 and legs have become quite monstrous from wounds inflicted by gnats ; 

 and in some cases in such a state as to render it doubtful whether amputa- 

 tion would not be necessary.^ In the neighborhood of the Crimea the 

 Russian soldiers are obliged to sleep in sacks to defend themselves from 

 the mosquitos ; and even this is not a sufficient securit}'', for several of 

 them die in consequence of mortification produced by the bites of these 

 furious blood-suckers. This fact is rela^ted by Dr. Clarke, and to its 

 probability his own painful experience enabled him to speak. He informs 

 us that the bodies of himself and his companions, in spite of gloves, 

 clothes, and handkerchiefs, were rendered one entirfe wound, and the con- 

 sequent excessive irritation and swelling excited a considerable degree of 

 fever. In a most sultry night, when not a breath of air was stirring, 

 exhausted by fatigue, pain and heat, he sought shelter in his carriage ; 

 and, though almost suffocated, could not venture to open a window for 

 fear of the mosquitos. Swarms nevertheless found their way into his 

 hiding-place : and, in spite of the handkerchiefs with which he had bound 

 up his head, filled his mouth, nostrils, and ears. In the midst of his 

 torment he succeeded in lighting a lamp, which was extinguished in a 

 moment by such a prodigious number of these insects, that their carcases 

 actually filled the glass chimney, and formed a large conical heap over 

 the burner. The noise they make in flying cannot be conceived by per- 

 sons who have only heard gnats in England. It is to all that hear it a 

 most fearful sound.-^ Travelers and mariners who have visited warmer 

 climates give a similar account of the torments there inflicted by these 

 little demons. One traveler in Africa complains that after a fifty miles 

 journey they would not suffer him to rest, and that his face and hands 

 appeared, from their bites, as if he was infected with the small-pox in its 

 worst stage.^ In the East, at Batavia, Dr. Arnold, a most attentive and 

 accurate observer, relates that their bite is the most venomous he ever felt, 

 occasioning a most intolerable itching, which lasts several days. The 

 sight or sound of a single one either prevented him from going to bed for 

 a whole night, or obliged him to rise many times. This species, which I 

 have examined, is distinct from the common gnat, and appears to be non- 

 descript. It approaches nearest to C. annulatus, but the wings are black 

 and not spotted. And Captain Stedman in America, as a proof of the 

 dreadful state to which he and his soldiers were reduced by them, mentions 

 that they were forced to sleep with their heads thrust into holes made in 

 the earth with their bayonets, and their necks wrapped round with their 

 hammocks.^ 



From Humboldt also we learn that " between the little harbor of 

 Higuerote and the mouth of the Rio Unare the wretched inhabitants are 

 accustomed to stretch themselves on the ground, and pass the night buried 



> Acerbi's Travels, ii. 5. 34, 35. 51. Lino. Flor. Lapp. 380, 381. Lack. Lapp. ii. 108. 

 De Geer, vi. 303, 304. « Reaum. iv. 573. 



3 Dr. Clarke's Travels, i. 388. * Jackson's Morocco, 57. 



^ Travels, ii. 93. Mr. W. S. MacLeay, in a letter I received from him, observed, speak- 

 ing of his residence at the Havana : " The disagreeables are ants, scorpions, mygales and 

 mosquitos. The latter were quite a pest on my first arrival within the tropics j but now I 

 mind them about as much as I did gnats in England." 



9 



