a6 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 
sidered as “ terrors by night.”! 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 ts to be 
hoped, to such an extent as the predecessor of a correspondent im 
Nicholson's Journal, who found his house so dreadfully infested by them, 
that it resembled the Banian hospital at Surat?, 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 suffer them to be disturbed 
or his bedsteads to be removed, till, in the end, they swarmed to an 
incredible degree, crawling up even the walls of his drawing-room ; and 
after his death millions were found in his bed and chamber furniture.* 
The winged insects of the order to which the bed-bug belongs, often 
inflict very painful wounds. — I was once attacked by a small species, near 
—Cimex Nemorum L. (Hylophila K.), which put me nearly to as much torture 
as the sting of a wasp. The water boatman (Notonecta glauca), an insect 
related to the Cimicide, which always swims upon its back, made me suffer 
still more severely, as if I had been burned, by the insertion of its rostrum ; 
but the wound was not followed by any inflammation ; and long before me 
Willoughby had made the same discovery and observation.* St. Pierre, in 
his Voyage to Mauritids, mentions a species of bug found in that island, 
the bite of which is more venomous than the sting of a scorpion, and is 
succeeded by a tumour as big as the egg of a pigeon, which continues for four 
or five days.» You are well acquainted with the history and properties of 
the Raia Torpedo and Gymnotus electricus : but I dare aver, have no idea 
that any insect possesses their extraordinary powers. — Yet I can assure 
— you, upon good authority, that Reduvius serratus, commonly known in the 
est Indies by the name of the wheel-bug, can, like them, communicate an 
electric shock to the person whose flesh it touches. The late Major- 
general Davis, of the Royal Artillery, well known as a most accurate 
observer of nature, and an indefatigable collector of her treasures, as well 
as a most admirable painter of them, once informed me, that when abroad, 
having taken up this animal and placed it upon his hand, it gave him a con- 
siderable shock, as if from an electric jar, with its legs, which he felt as 
1 Hence our English word Bug-bear. In Matthews’s Bible, Ps. xci. 5. is ren- 
dered, “ Thou shalt not nede to be afraid of any bugs by night.” ‘The word in this 
sense oftens occurs in Shakspeare, Winter’s Tule, act iii. sc. 2, 8. Hen. VI. act v. 
se. 2. Hamlet, act v. sc.2. See Douce’s Lilustrations of Shakspeare, i. 329. in quoting 
which work it may be observed that the author was a zealous entomologist. (Life 
in Annual Obituary.) 
2 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 extraordinary ward was that appropriated to rats 
and mice, bugs, and other noxious vermin, The overseers of the hospital frequently 
hire beggars 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 enjoy their feast without 
molestation. Forbes’s Oriental Memoirs. 
5 Nicholson’s Journal, xvii. 40. 
+ Proboscis in cutem intrusa acerrin.um dolorem excitat, qui tamen brevi cessat. 
Rai, Hist. Ins. 58. 
5 The Benchucha, or great black bug of the Pampas of South America, a species of 
Reduvius, is a far more obnoxious species than our common bed-bug. See C. Dar- 
win’s Personal Narrative, iii, 403. 
