DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 101 



changed into despair by the information of the laughing 

 Sheik, that " the king of the fleas held his court at Ti- 

 berias : " or than those of MM. Lewis and Clarke, who 

 found them more tormenting than all the other plagues 

 of the Missouri country, where they sometimes compel 

 even the natives to shift their quarters. If you un- 

 happily view them in this unfavourable light, and have 

 found ordinary methods unavailing for ridding yourself 

 of these unbidden guests ; I can furnish you with a pro- 

 batum est recipe, which the first-mentioned traveller tells 

 us the Hungarian shepherds (who seem to have been stu- 

 pidly insensible to their value as alarums) find com- 

 pletely effectual to put to flight these insects and their 

 neighbours the lice. This is not, as you may be tempted 

 to think, by a remarkable attention to cleanliness. — 

 Quite the reverse. — They grease their linen with hog's 

 lard, and thus render themselves disgusting even to 

 fleas ! If this does not satisfy, I have another recipe in 

 store for you. You may shoot at them with a cannon, 

 as report says did Christina Queen of Sweden, whose 

 piece of artillery, of Liliputian calibre, which was em- 

 ployed in this warfare, is still exhibited in the arsenal of 

 Stockholm 3 . But, seriously, if you wish for an effectual 

 remedy, that prescribed by old Tusser, in the following 

 lines, will answ r er your purpose : 



" While wormwood hath seed, get a handfull or twaine, 

 To save against March, to make flea to refraine : 

 Where chamber is sweeped, and wormwood is strown, 

 No flea for his life dare abide to be known." 



To this genus belongs an insect, abundant in the 



a Linn. Lack. Lapp, ii, 32. note #. 



