102 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



baneful effects. The sting of certain kinds common in South America 

 causes fevers, numbness in various parts of the body, tumors in the 

 tongue, and dimness of sight, which symptoms last from twenty-four to 

 forty-eight hours. The only means of saving the lives of our soldiers 

 who were stung by them in Egypt, was amputation. One species is said 

 to occasion madness ; and the black scorpion, both of South America and 

 Ceylon, frequently inflicts a mortal wound. ^ No known animal is more 

 cruel and ferocious in its manners ; they kill and devour their own young 

 without pity as soon as they are born, and they are equally savage to their 

 fellows when grown up. Terrible however and revolting as these creatures 

 appear, we are gravely told by Naude, that there is a species of scorpion 

 in Italy which is domesticated, and put between the sheets to cool the 

 beds during the heats of summer ! !^ 



I must next say something of insects that annoy us solely by lhe'\r jaws. 

 Of this description is Galeodes araneoides, which is related to the scorpion, 

 although devoid of a sting. The bite of this animal, which is a native of 

 the Cape of Good Hope and of Russia"', is represented to be often fatal 

 both toman and beast. Another species of Galeodes is described by Pro- 

 fessor Lichtenstein, which from the trivial namethat hehas given it {faia- 

 lis), may be supposed to be as venomous as the former.'* 



The bite of one of the centipedes (^Scolopcndra morsitans^ — the under- 

 jaws, or rather arms, of which are armed with a strong claw, furnished 

 like the sting of the scorpipn with an orifice visible under a common lens, 

 from which poison issues — is less tremendous than that of the animal last 

 mentioned : but though not mortal, its wounds are more painful than those 

 'produced by the sting of the scorpion ; and as these animals creep every 

 where, even into beds, they must be very annoying in warm climates 

 where they abound. Dr. Martin Lister in his Travels, lias given us a 

 figure of an insect related to this genus, that he saw in Plumier's collec- 

 tion, which appears to have been eighteen inches in length, and three quar- 

 ters' of an inch in width, having ninety -five legs on each side, the first 

 eight of which are armed with double claws, and two inches of the tail 

 being without legs. It may form a distinct genus, and is probably a 

 native of South America. Yet even this monstrous insect is nothing to 

 those at Carthagena, mentioned by Ulloa (if indeed we may credit his 

 account, or if his translator has not mistaken his meaning), which some- 

 limes exceeded a yard in length and five inches in breadth ! The bite of 

 this gigantic serpent-like creature, he tells us, is mortal, as well it may, if 

 a timely remedy be not applied. From its cylindrical form it should be a 

 Jidus.^ 



In this catalogue of noxious insects I must not omit those which every 

 where force themselves upon our notice, and are viewed with general dis- 

 gust. I mean the numerous family of Arachne, the insidious spiders. 

 Few of these, however, are really personal assailants of man. The prin- 



» Ulloa's Voy. i. 61, 62. Dr. Clarke's Travels, i. 486. Amoreux, 197. Mr. W. S. Mac- 

 Leay relates to me that soon after his arrival at the Havana he was stung by an immense 

 scorpion, but was agreeably surprised to find the pain considerably less than the sting of a 

 wasp, and of incomparably shorter duration. 



* Andrew's Antedates, 427. See on the subject of Scorpions, Amoreux, 41 — 54. 

 17(5—205. 



3 Fab. Suppl. 294. 2. * CtUal. Ham. 1797, 151—195. » Ulloa's Voyage, i. 61. 



