DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



85 



West Indies by the name of the icheel-hug, can, like them, 

 communicate an electric shock to the person whose flesh it 

 touches. The late Major-general Davies, of the Royal 

 Artillery, well known as a most accurate observer of nature, 

 and an indefatigable collector of her treasures, as well as a 

 most admirable painter of them, once informed me, that when 

 abroad, having taken up this animal and placed it upon his 

 hand, it gave him a considerable shock, as if from an electric 

 jar, with its legs, which he felt as high as his shoulders ; and, 

 dropping the creature, he observed six marks upon his hand 

 where the six feet had stood. ^ 



You may now possibly think that I have nearly gone 

 through the catalogue of our personal assailants of the insect 

 tribes. If such, however, is your expectation, I fear you 

 will be disappointed, since I have many more, and some 

 tremendous ones, to enumerate : but as a small compensation 

 for such a detail of evils and inj uries to which our species is 

 exposed from foes seemingly so insignificant, and of acts of 

 rebellion of the vilest and most despised of our subjects against 

 our boasted supremacy, the objects to which I shall next call 

 your attention are not, like most of our apterous enemies, 

 calculated to excite disgust and nausea when we see them or 

 speak of them ; nor do they usually steal upon us during the 

 silent hours of repose (though I must except here the gnat 

 or mosquito), but are many of them very beautiful, and 

 boldly make their attack upon us in open day, when we are 

 best able to defend ourselves. Borne on rapid wings, wherever 

 they find us, they endeavour to lay us under contribution, 

 and the tribute they exact is our blood. Wonderful and 

 various are the weapons that enable them to enforce their 

 demand. What would you think of any large animal that 

 should come to attack you with a tremendous apparatus of 



1 Two similar instances of effects on the human system, resembling electric 

 shocks, produced by insects, have been communicated to the Entomological 

 Society by Mr. Yarrell ; one, mentioned in a letter from Lady de Grey, of Groby, 

 in which the shock was caused by a beetle, one of the common Elateridoe, and 

 extended from the hand to the elbow on suddenly touching the insect ; the 

 other, caused by a large hairy lepidopterous caterpillar, picked up in South 

 America by Capt. Blakeney, R. N., who felt on touching it a sensation, extend- 

 ing up his arm, similar to an electric shock, of such force that he lost the use of 

 the arm for a time, and his life was even considered in danger by his medical 

 attendant. {Trans. EnU Soc. Lond. iii. proc. viii. xxiii.) 



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