228 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



by the light, is so great as to spoil the comfort of almost 

 every meal. We are told that during the rainy season 

 in India, insects of all descriptions are so incredibly nu- 

 merous, and so busy every where, that it is often abso- 

 lutely necessary to remove the lights from the supper- 

 ^able: — were this not done, moths, flies, bugs, beetles, 

 and the like, would be attracted in such numbers as to 

 extinguish them entirely. When the lights are retained 

 on the table, in some places they are put into glass cy- 

 linders, which St. Pierre tells us is the custom in the 

 Island of Mauritius a ; in others the candlesticks are 

 placed in soup-plates, into which the insects are preci- 

 pitated and drowned. Nothing can exceed the irrita- 

 tion caused by the stinking bugs when they get into the 

 hair or between the linen and the body ; and if they be 

 bruised upon it the skin comes off b . To use the lan- 

 guage of a poet of the Indies, from whom some of the 

 above facts are selected, 



" On every dish the booming beetle falls, 

 The cock-roach plays, or caterpillar crawls : 

 A thousand shapes of variegated hues 

 Parade the table and inspect the stews. 

 To living walls the swarming hundreds stick, 

 Or court, a dainty meal, the oily wick ; 

 Heaps over heaps their slimy bodies drench, 

 Out go the lamps with suffocating stench. 

 When hideous insects every plate defile, 

 The laugh how empty, and how forced the smile c ! " 



Drugs and medicines also, though often so nauseous 

 to us, form occasionally part of the food of insects. A 



* Voyage, &c. 72. h Williamson's East India Fade Mecum. 



c Calcutta, a Poem, 85. 



