134 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 
times even water in the casks of ships, in long voyages, so abounds with 
larvee of this tribe as to render it extremely disgusting. Browne, in his 
History of Jamaica, mentions an ant (Jormica omnivora L.), probably be- 
longing to Myrmica, that consumes or spoils all kinds of food; which 
ee may be the same species that has been observed in Ceylon by 
ercival, and is described by him as inhabiting dwelling-houses, and 
speedily devouring every thing it can meet with. If at table any one drops 
a piece of bread, or of other food, it instantly appears in motion as if 
animated, from the vast number of these creatures that fasten upon it in 
order to carry it off. They can be kept, he tells us, by no contrivance 
from invading the table, and settling in swarms on the bread, sugar, and 
such things as they like. It is not uncommon to see a cup of tea, upon 
being poured out, completely covered with these creatures, and floating 
dead upon it like a scum.* 
In some countries the number of flies and other insects that enter the 
house in search of food, or allured 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 numerous, and so 
busy every where, that it is often absolutely necessary to remove the lights 
from the supper table : —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 cylinders, which™St. Pierre tells us is the custom in the 
Island of Mauritius? ; in others the candlesticks are placed in soup plates, 
into which the insects are precipitated and drowned. Nothing can exceed 
the irritation 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$ To use the language of a poct of the Indies from whom some 
of the above facts are selected, — 
“ On every dish the booming beetle falls, 
The cockroach plays, or caterpillar crawls : 
A thousand shapes of variegated hues 
Parade the table or 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!” 4 
Ee 
far as they were unimpregnated with the wine; but finding the sweet flavour of the 
Persian shiraz and old hock more to their taste, had encroached upon the corks of 
these so deeply as to allow the wine to escape. A few individuals of two minute 
beetles Cryptophagus cellaris and Mycetea hirta, a minute Acarus, and Atropos lig- 
narius, were found on the corroded corks, but seem more likely to have been 
attracted by the oozing wine than to have originally caused the damage. (Trans, 
Ent. Soc. ‘Lond. i. proc. lv.) Mr. Thwaites suggests that Blaps mortisaga is more 
likely to have eaten the corks than cockroaches, which do not usually frequent 
cellars, whereas the former are found very generally in those of Bristol; and, as he 
has observed the stomach of the individuals of these insects which.he dissected to be 
filled with what seemed saw-dust. they may probably also eat corks, which indeed 
he found they did on putting them iutoa box along with the insects. 
1 Ceylon, 307. 2 Voyage, &e. 72. 
5 Williamson’s Last India Vade Mecum. 4 Calcutta, a Poem, 85. 
