88 



DIEECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



no sooner does life depart from the bird that these flies infest 

 than they immediately desert it and take flight, alighting 

 upon the first living creature that they meet with ; which if 

 it be not a bird they soon quit, but, as it should seem from 

 the above facts, not before they have made a trial how it will 

 suit them as food. 



But of all the insect-tormentors of man, none are so loudly 

 and universally complained of as the species of the genus 

 Culex L., whether known by the name of gnats or mosquitos,^ 

 Pliny, after Aristotle, distinguishes well between Hymenoptera 

 and Diptera, when he says the former have their sting in the 

 tail, and the latter in the mouth; and that to the one this 

 weapon is given as the instrument of vengeance, and to the 

 other of avidity.^ But the instrument of avidity in the genus 

 of which I am speaking, is even more terrible than that of 

 vengeance in most insects that are armed with it : like the 

 latter also, as appears from the consequent inflammation and 

 tumour, it instils into its wound a poison ; the principal use of 

 which, however, is to render the blood more fluid and fitter for 

 suction. This weapon, which is more complex than the sting 

 of hymenopterous insects, consisting of five pieces besides the 

 exterior sheath, some of which seem simply lancets, while 

 others are barbed like the spicula of a bee's sting, is at once 

 calculated for piercing the flesh and forming a siphon adapted 

 to imbibe the blood.^ There are several species of this genus 

 whose bite is severe, but none is to be compared to the 



1 It has been generally supposed by naturalists, that the Mosqultos of 

 America belong to the Linnean genus Culex ; but the celebrated traveller 

 Humboldt asserts that the term Mosquito, signifying a Utile fly, is applied there 

 to a SimuUum Latr. (Simulia Meig. ), and that the Culices, which are equally 

 numerous and annoying, are called Zancudoes, which means long legs. The 

 former, he says, are what the French call Moustiques, and the latter Maringouins. 

 (^Personal Narrative, E. T. v. 93.) Humboldt's remark, however, refers only to 

 South America ; Mr. Westwood informing us that Mosquito is certainly applied 

 to a species of Culex in the United States, the inhabitants giving the name of 

 hlack-fly to a small Simulium. See " An Introduction to the Modern Classifi- 

 cation of Insects, by J. O. Westwood, F.L.S," 2 vols. Lond. 1839 — 1841, 

 (ii. 510.), a work invaluable to the entomologist both for its systematic details 

 and vast mass of original and collected facts relative to the affinities, habits, and 

 economy of insects. 



2 Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 28. Aristot. Hist. Animal. 1. i. c. 5. 



3 Pliny was aware of this double office of the proboscis of a gnat, and has 

 well described it. " Telum vero perfodiendo tergori quo spiculavit ingenio ? 

 Atque ut in capaci, cum cerni non possit exilitas, ita reciproca geminavit arte, ut 

 fodiendo acuminatum pariter sorbendoque fistulosum esset." Hist. Nat. 1. xi. c. 2. 



