DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 45. 
scarcely less painful than the sting of a bee.t Another, from the intole- 
rable anguish occasioned by its bite, which resembles that produced by a 
spark of fire and seems attended by venom, is called the fire-ant. Captain 
Stedman relates that this caused a whole company of soldiers to start and 
jump about a8 if scalded with boiling water; and its nests were so 
numerous that it was not easy to avoid them.® We are told of a third 
species, which emulates the scorpion in the malignity of its sting or bite.* 
Knox, in his account of Ceylon, mentions a black ant, called by the natives 
Coddia, which he says “bites desperately, as bad as if a man were burnt 
by a coal of fire; but they are of a noble nature, and will not begin unless 
you disturb them.” The reason the Cinghalese assign for the horrible 
pain occasioned by their bite is curious, and will serve to amuse you. 
“Formerly these ants went to ask a wife of the Noya, a venomous and 
noble kind of snake; and because they had such a high spirit to dare to 
offer to be related to such a generous creature, they had this virtue be- 
stowed upon them that they should sting after this manner. And if they 
had obtained a wife of the Noya, they should have had the privilege to 
sting full as bad as he.’* Stedman’s story of a large ant that stripped the 
trees of their leaves, to feed, as was supposed, a blind serpent under 
ground®, is somewhat akin to this: as is also another, related to me by a 
friend of mine, of a species of Mantis, now in my cabinet, taken in one of 
the Indian Islands, which, according to the received opinion amongst the 
natives, was the parent of all their serpents, Whence, unless perhaps 
from their noxious qualities, could this idea of a connexion between in- 
sects and these reptiles be derived ? . But to return from this digression — 
Madame Merian’s Ant of Visitation (Atta cephalotes) will be considered 
in a subsequent letter: but I cannot here omit a circumstance mentioned 
by Don Felix de Azara, a Spanish traveller, who confirms her account, — 
that these animals are so alarming and tremendous in their attacks, that if 
they enter a house in the night, the inhabitants are obliged to rise with all 
speed and run off in their shirts. 
I must next direct your attention to an insect, which perhaps more than 
any other has been in every age an object of terror and abhorrence — [ 
mean the redoubted scorpion, And though I shall not, with Aristotle, tell 
you of Persian kings employing armies for several days in destroying them; 
or, with Pliny, of countries that they have depopulated ; yet my account 
will not be'devoid of that species of interest which the dread of its power 
to do us injury imparts to any object. Could you see one of these fero- 
cious animals, perhaps a foot in length, a size to which they sometimes 
attain, advancing towards you in their usual menacing attitude, with its 
claws expanded, and its many-jointed tail turned over its head ; were your 
heart ever so stout, I think ‘you would start back and feel a horror come 
across you ; and though you knew not the animal, you would conclude 
that such an aspect of malignity must be the precursor of malignant effects. 
Nor would you be mistaken, as you will presently see. This alarming 
animal, though, like hymenopterous insects, it is armed with a sting, is in 
no respect related to that order, and forms the only genus, at present 
known, of the others that is so armed, Even its sting is totally different 
' Hawkesworth’s Coof, iii. 223, 2 Stedman, ii. 94. Ls 
® Bingley, iii, 885. first edit. 4 Knox’s Ceylon, 24, 5 Stedman, ii, 142, 
ay 
