DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 117 



of the handkerchiefs with which he had bound up his 

 head, filled his mouth, 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 Eng- 

 land. It is to all that hear it a most fearful sound a . 

 Travellers and mariners who have visited warmer cli- 

 mates o - ive a similar account of the torments there in- 

 flicted by these little demons. One traveller in Africa 

 complains that after a fifty miles journey they would not 

 suffer him to rest, and that his face and hands appeared, 

 from their bites, as if he was infected with the small-pox 

 in its worst stage b . In the East, at Batavia, Dr. Arnold, 

 a most attentive and accurate observer, relates that their 

 bite is the most venomous he ever felt, occasioning a most 

 intolerable itching, which lasts several days. The sight 

 or sound of a single one either prevented him from go- 

 ing to bed for a whole night, or obliged him to rise many 

 times. This species, which I have examined, is distinct 

 from the common gnat, and appears to be nondescript. 

 It approaches nearest to C. annulaia, but the wings are 

 black and not spotted. And Captain Stedman in Ame- 

 rica, as a proof of the dreadful state to which he and his 

 soldiers were reduced by them, mentions that they were 

 forced to sleep with their heads thrust into holes made 

 in the earth with their bayonets, and their necks wrapped 

 round with their hammocks . 



a Dr. Clarke's Travels, i. 388. b Jackson's Morocco, 57. 



c Travels, ii. 1)3. 



