DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 119 



have attained to fame, and have given their name to 

 bays, towns, and even to considerable territories*. 



And now, which seems to you the greater terror, that 

 the forest should resound with the roar of the lion or 

 the tiger, or with the hum of the gnat ? Which evil is 

 most to be deprecated, the neighbourhood of these fero- 

 cious animals, terrible as they are for their cruelty and 

 strength, or to live amidst the polar or tropical myriads 

 of mosquitos, and be subject to the torture of their in- 

 cessant attacks ? When you consider that from the one, 

 prudence and courage may secure or defend us without 

 any material sacrifice of our daily comforts ; while to be at 

 rest from the other, we must either render ourselves disgust- 

 ing by filthy unguents, or be suffocated by fumigations, 

 or be content to be bound, head, hand and foot, shut out 

 from the respiration of the common air, and even thus 

 scarcely escape from their annoyance ; you will feel con- 

 vinced that the former is the more tolerable evil of the 

 two, and be inclined to think that those cities, from which 

 the lions were driven away by the more powerful gnats, 

 were no great gainers by the exchange b . With what 

 grateful hearts ought the privileged inhabitants of these 

 happy islands to acknowledge and glorify the goodness 

 of that kind Providence which has distinguished us from 

 the less favoured nations of the globe, by what may be 

 deemed an immunity from this tormenting pest ! for the 

 inroads which they make on our comfort, when con- 

 trasted with what so many other people of every climate 

 suffer from them, are mere nothings. When we behold 



* Viz. Mosquito Bay in St. Christopher's ; Mosquitos, a town in 

 the Island of Cuba; and the Mojito country in North America. 

 *> Mouffet, Sn, 



