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DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



and not seldom enable us to rescue their reputation from much 

 of the censure which has been inconsiderately cast upon it. 

 Because they did not know every thing, or so much as we do, 

 we are too apt to think that they knew nothing. That they 

 fell into very considerable errors, especially in subjects con- 

 nected with Natural History, cannot be denied ; but then it 

 ought to be considered that they possessed scarcely any of 

 those advantages by which we are enabled to penetrate into 

 nature's secrets. The want of the microscope alone was an 

 effectual bar to their progress in this branch of science. Yet, 

 in some instances, when they took a general view of a sub- 

 ject, they appear to have had very correct ideas. This ob- 

 servation particularly applies to the philosopher of Stagyra, 

 whose mighty mind and lyncean eye, in spite of those mists 

 of prejudice and fable that enveloped the age in which he 

 lived, enabled him in part to pierce through the gloom, and 

 comprehend and behold the fair outline that gives symmetry, 

 grace, and beauty to the whole of nature's form, though he 

 mistook, or was not able to trace out, her less prominent fea- 

 tures and minor lineaments. 



It is now time to return from this long digression, which, 

 however, is closely connected with the subject of this letter, 

 to the point from which I deviated. Taking my leave of the 

 disgusting animals which gave rise to it, I proceed to call 

 your attention to another of our pigmy tormentors {Pulex 

 irritans), which, in the opinion of some, seems to have been 

 regarded as an agreeable rather than a repulsive object. 

 " Dear miss," said a lively old lady to a friend of mine (who 

 had the misfortune to be confined to her bed by a broken 

 limb, and was complaining that the fleas tormented her), 

 " don't you like fleas ? Well, I think they are the prettiest 

 little merry things in the world. — I never saw a dull flea in 

 all my life." The celebrated Willughby kept a favourite flea, 

 which used at stated times to be admitted to suck the palm 

 of his hand; and enjoyed this privilege for three months, 

 when the cold killed it. And Dr. Townson, from the enco- 

 mium which he bestows upon these vigilant little vaulters, as 

 supplying the place of an alarum and driving us from the bed 



