64 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 
These all belong to the Linnean order Hymenoptera; and the tremendous 
arms with which they annoy us, are two darts finer than a hair, furnished 
on their outer side at the end with several barbs not visible to the naked 
eye, and each moving in the groove of a strong and often curved sheath, 
frequently mistaken for the sting, which, when the darts enter the flesh, 
usually injects a drop of subtle venom, furnished from a peculiar vessel in 
which it is secreted, into the wound, occasioning, especially if the darts be 
not extracted, a considerable tumour, accompanied by very acute pain. 
Many insects are thus armed and have this power. Twice I have been 
stung by an Ichneumon; first by one with a concealed sting, and after- 
wards by another of the family of Pinpla Manifestator, with a very long 
exserted one. Lhad held the insect by its sting, which it withdrew from 
between my fingers with surprising force, and then, as if in revenge, stung 
me. Pompilus viaticus, one of the spider-wasps, once, in this way, gave 
me acute pain, Mr. W. S. MacLeay states that at the Havana he was 
once stung by a gigantic Pompilus (probably P. Heros), from which he 
suffered a very short-lived pain, but the wound bled as if punctured by a 
pin. The bleeding, he conjectures, carried off the venom. But the insects 
which in this respect principally attract our notice by exciting our fears, 
are the hive-bee, the wasp, and the hornet. The first of these, the bee, 
sometimes manifests an antipathy to particular individuals, whom it attacks 
and wounds without provocation; but the two last, though apparently 
the most formidable, are not so ill-tempered as they are conceived to be, 
seldom molesting those who do not first interfere with or disturb them. 
We learn from Scripture that the hornet (but whether it was the common 
species is uncertain) was employed by Providence to drive out the im- 
pious inhabitants of Canaan, or subdue them under the hands of the 
Israelites..—The effect produced by the sting of these animals is different 
in different persons. ‘To some they occasion only a very slight incon- 
venience or a momentary pain; others feel the smart of the wounds which 
they inflict for several days, and are thrown into fevers by them; and to 
some they have even proved fatal.? Yet these insects are certainly, in 
general, but a trifling evil. They become, however, especially wasps, a 
very serious one to many, from the mere’ dread of being stung by them, 
even though they should not carry their fears to the same length with the 
lady mentioned by Dr. Fairfax’, in the Philosophical Transactions, who had 
such a horror of them that during the season in which they abound in 
houses, she always confined herself to her apartment. An insect of a 
tribe never before suspected of being endowed with such a mode of annoy- 
ance, one of the order Lepidoptera, found at the Cape of Good Hope, is 
said to defend itself when captured by stinging, whence it is there named 
the Bee-moth, and it is added that the puncture, which is very painful, is 
speedily followed by swelling and inflammation." 
——~ Anis ave insects of this order, which, though our indigenous species may 
be regarded as harmless, in some countries are gilted with double means 
of annoyance, both from their sting and their bite. A green kind in New 
South Wales was observed by Sir Joseph Banks to inflict a wound 
1 Deut, vii. 20. Josh. xxiv. 12. 2 Amoreux, 242. 
8 Philos. Trans. i. 201. 
4 Oken’s Jsis, 1831, p. 1917., from a letter received by Dr. Reich, from the Cape of 
Good Hope, quoted in Burmeister’s Manual of Ent, p. 381. 
