90 



DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



cloud, darkening the air and almost totally intercepting the 

 beams of the sun. One day, a little before sunset, six 

 columns of them were observed to ascend from the boughs of 

 an apple-tree, some in a perpendicular and others in an oblique 

 direction, to the height of fifty or sixty feet. Their bite was 

 so envenomed, that it was attended by violent and alarming 

 inflammation ; and one when killed usually contained as much 

 blood as would cover three or four square inches of wall.^ 

 Our great poet Spenser seems to have witnessed a similar 

 appearance of them, which furnished him with the following 

 beautiful simile : — 



As when a swarme of gnats at eventide 



Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise, 



Their murmuring small trumpets sownden wide, 



Whiles in the air their clust'ring army flies, 



That as a cloud doth seem to dim the skies ; 



Ne man nor beast may rest or take repast 



For their sharp wounds and noyous injuries. 



Till the fierce northern wind with blust'ring blast 



Doth blow them quite away, and in the ocean cast. 



In Marshland in Norfolk, as I learn from a lady who had 

 an opportunity of personal inspection, the inhabitants are so 

 annoyed by the gnats, that the better sort of them, as in many 

 hot climates, have recourse to a gauze covering for their beds, 

 to keep them off during the night. Whether this practice 

 obtains in other fen districts I do not know.^ 



But these evils are of small account compared with what 

 other countries, especially when we approach the poles or the 

 line, are destined to suffer from them : for there they interfere 

 so much with ease and comfort, as to become one of the worst 

 of pests and a real misery of human life. We may be disposed 

 to smile perhaps at the story Mr. Weld relates from General 

 Washington, that in one place the mosquitos were so powerful 

 as to pierce through his boots'^ (probably they crept within 

 the boots) : but in various regions scarcely any thing less im- 

 penetrable than leather can withstand their insinuating 



1 Philos. Trans. 1767, 111. 113. I once witnessed a similar appearance at 

 Maidstone in Kent. 



2 A small British species of Ceratopogon (one of the midge family of Tipu. 

 lidce) is occasionally very troublesome by settling upon the uncovered parts of the 

 body and sucking the blood. 



3 Weld's Travels, 8vo. edit. 205. Yet Mouffet affirms the same : " Morsu 

 crudeles et venenati, triplices caligas, imo ocreas, item perforantes." 81. 



