DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



103 



^cipal is that which has given rise to so much discussion, and has so much 

 employed the pens of naturalists and physicians — the famous Tarantula 

 {Lycosa Tarantula). The effects ascribed to its wounds, and their won- 

 derful cure supposed to be wrought by music and dancing, have long been 

 celebrated : but after all there seems to have been more of fraud than of 

 truth in the business ; and the whole evil appears to consist in swelling 

 and inflammation. Dr. Clavitio submitted to be bitten by this animal, and 

 no bad effects ensued ; and the Count de Borch,a Polish nobleman, bribed 

 a man to undergo the same experiment, in whom the only result was a 

 swelling in the hand, attended by intolerable itching. The fellow's sole 

 remedy was a bottle of wine, which charmed away all his pain without 

 the aid of pipe and tabor. ^ 



There is however a spider (Theridium lo-guttatum) the bite of which 

 is said to be very dangerous, and even mortal. Thiebaut de Berneaud, 

 in his Voyage to Elba^, affirms that in the Volterrano he knew that several 

 country people and domestic animals died in consequence of it. And, 

 according to Mr. Jackson, a spider, called there the Tendaraman,\s found 

 in Marocco, which has venomous powers equally formidable. The bite of 

 this insect, which is about the size and color of a hornet but rounder, and 

 spins a web so fine as to be almost invisible, is said to be so poisonous that 

 the person bitten survives but a few hours. In the cork forests the sports- 

 man, eager in his pursuit of game, frequently carries away on his garments 

 this fatal insect, which is asserted always to make towards the head before 

 inflicting its wound.^ 



I suspect you will think this list long enough ; and I believe it includes 

 the most remarkable insects that assail the surface of our bodies, to answer 

 either the demands of hunger or the stimulus of revenge. There is how- 

 ever a third class of insect annoyers, as I observed at the beginning of this 

 letter, which, though they neither make us their food, nor attack us under 

 the impulse of fear or revenge, incommode us extremely in other ways. 

 These must now be detailed to you. 



How extremely unpleasant is the sensation which that very minute fly 

 (TArips yhysapus) excites in sultry weather, merely by creeping over our 

 skin ! I have sometimes found this almost intolerable. A similar torment 

 reckoned by Ulloa, a kind of Mosquito, infests the inhabitants of Cartha- 

 gena in South America. They are there called Mantas Blancas, and 

 creeping between the threads of the gauze curtains that keep off the for- 

 mer pest, though they do not bite, occasion an itching that is dreadfully 

 tormenting.'* But these are nothing compared with the teasing attacks of 

 another gnat (Simulium reptans), which, as Linne informs us, who misnam- 

 ed it a Culex, is so incredibly numerous in Lapland, as entirely to cover a 

 man's body, turning a white dress into a black one, occupying the whole 

 atmosphere, filling the mouth, nostrils, eyes, and ears of travelers, and thus 

 preventing respiration, and almost choking them. These little animals, he 



» Amoreux. 217. 226. See also 67—70. * p. 31. ^ Jackson's Marocco, second edit. 



* Ulloa, 1. 64. Probably the Cafaji, a white fly noticed by Humboldt, is synonymoas 

 with this of Ulloa, which could only be prevented from creeping between the threads of the 

 curtains by keeping them wet. Personal Narrative, E. T. v. 107. 



