DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 107 



were doubtless the disgusting animals now before us. 

 They seem, indeed, as the above fact proves, to have 

 been productive of greater alarm at first than mischief, 

 at least if we may judge from the change of name which 

 took place upon their becoming common. Their ori- 

 ginal English name was Chinche or Wall-louse a ; and 

 the term Bug, which is a Celtic word, signifying a ghost 

 or goblin, was applied to them after Ray's time, most 

 probably because they were considered as " terrors by 

 night b ." But however horrible bugs may have been in 

 the estimation of some, or nauseating in that of others, 

 many of the good people of London seem to regard 

 them with the greatest apathy, and take very little pains 

 to get rid of them ; not generally, however, it is to be 

 hoped, to such an extent as the predecessor of a corre- 

 spondent in Nicholson's Journal, who found his house 

 so dreadfully infested by them, that it resembled the 

 Banian hospital at Surat c , all his endeavours to destroy 

 them being at first in vain. And no wonder ; for, as he 

 learned from a neighbour, his predecessor would never 



a Rai. Hist. Ins. 7- Mouffet, 269. They were called also punez, 

 from the French punaise. 



b Hence our English word Bug-bear. In Matthews's J?2'W<?,Ps.xci. 5. 

 is rendered, " Thou shalt not nede to be afraid of any bugs by night." 

 The word in this sense often occurs in Shakespear. Winter'' s Talc, 

 act iii. sc.2. 3. Hen. VI. act v. sc. 2. Hamlet, act v. sc. 2. See Douce's 

 Illustrations of Shakespear, i. 329. 



c The Banian hospital at Surat is a most remarkable institution. 

 At my visit, the hospital contained horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, 

 monkeys, poultry, pigeons, and a variety of birds. The most extra- 

 ordinary ward was that appropriated to rats and mice, bugs, and other 

 noxious vermin. The overseers of the hospital frequently hire beg- 

 gars from the streets, for a stipulated sum, to pass a night amongst the 

 fleas, lice, and bugs, on the express condition of suffering them to en- 

 joy their feast without molestation. Forbes's Oriental Memoirs. 



