84 



DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



apathy, and take very little pains to get rid of them ; not 

 generally, however, it is to be hoped, to such an extent as 

 the predecessor of a correspondent in 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 fur- 

 niture.^ 



The winged insects of the order to which the bed-bug 

 belongs, often inflict very painful wounds. — I was once at- 

 tacked by a small species, near Cimex Nemorum L. {Hylo- 

 phila 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 Cimicidce, 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 

 Willughby had made the same discovery and observation.^ 

 St. Pierre, in his Voyage to Mauritius, 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 pro- 

 perties of the Rata Torpedo and Gymnotus electricus ; but I 

 dare aver, have no idea that any insect possesses their ex- 

 traordinary powers. — Yet I can assure you, upon good 

 authority, that Reduvius serratus, commonly known in the 



1 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, hugs, 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. 



2 Nicholson's Journal, xvii. 40. 



3 Proboscis in cutem intrusa acerrimum dolorem excitat, qui tamen brevi 

 cessat. Rai, Hist, Ins. 58. 



* 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. Darwin's Personal Narrative, iii. 403. 



