THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 105 



in Lapland, that to free themselves from them they had 

 recourse to the extreme measure of covering their faces 

 with tar. Does the reader beheve that these people 

 treated insects with the same disdain as the poets, who 

 did not in any way understand them?^ 



A simple fly in Africa does still more : it disputes the 

 land mth us foot by foot; there is a struggle between 

 man and it as to which shall have possession. Where it 

 lives it prevents him from carrying on agriculture, and 

 limits his explorations; he can only become master of 

 the soil when he has exterminated it. This fly, generally 

 called tsetse by the natives, is shaped like our common 

 species, and seems to all appearance equally inoffensive, 

 but its mouth secretes a venom the activity of which by 

 far surpasses that of the most redoubtable serpents. It 



esting is its action ou that plague of all tropical countries — tlje countless ants. 

 Before the windows and surrounding the whole house where I lived at Alh.ay, on 

 Luzon, was fastened a board six inches in width', on which long caravans of ants 

 were constantly moving in all directions, making it appear an almost uniformly 

 black surface. A track of the powder several inches in width, strewed across 

 the board, or some tincture sprinkled over it, proved an insurmountable barrier 

 to these firocessions. The first who halted before it were ]>ushed on by the 

 crowds behind them ; but, immediately on passing over, showed .symptoms of 

 narcosis, and died in a minute or two, and within a short time the rest left the 

 house altogether." 



1 Dr. Clarke, travelling in the Crimea, tells us that the bodies of himself and 

 his companions, in spjite of gloves, clothes, and handkerchiefs, were rendered one 

 entire wound, and the consequent in-itation and swelling excited a considerable 

 degree of fever. In a mo.st sultry night, when not a breath of air was stirring, 

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

 though almost suifocated, could not venture to open a window for fear of the 

 mosquitoes. Swarms nevertheless found their way into his hiding-place; and in 

 .spite of the handkerchiefs with which he had bound \q) his head, filled his 

 month, 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 persons who have only heard gnats in England. It is to all that 



hear it a most fearful sound. — Dr. Clarke's Travels, i. .388. 



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