DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 91 



weapons and unwearied attacks. One would at first imagine 

 that regions where the polar winter extends its icy reign 

 would not be much annoyed by insects : but however probable 

 the supposition, it is the reverse of fact, for nowhere are gnats 

 more numerous. These animals, as well as numbers of the 

 Tipularice of Latreille, seem endowed with the privilege of 

 resisting any degree of cold, and of bearing any degree of 

 heat. In Lapland their numbers are so prodigious as to be 

 compared to a flight of snow when the flakes fall thickest, or 

 to the dust of the earth. The natives cannot take a mouthful 

 of food, or lie down to sleep in their cabins, unless they be 

 fumigated almost to suflbcation. In the air you cannot draw 

 your breath without having your mouth and nostrils filled 

 with them ; and unguents of tar, fish-grease, or cream, or 

 nets steeped in fetid birch-oil, are scarcely sufiicient to protect 

 even the case-hardened cuticle of the Laplander from their 

 bite.^ In certain districts of France, the accurate Beaumur 

 informs us that he has seen people whose arms and legs have 

 become quite monstrous from wounds inflicted by gnats ; and 

 in some cases in such a state as to render it doubtful whether 

 amputation would not be necessary.^ In the neighbourhood 

 of the Crimea the Russian soldiers are obliged to sleep in 

 sacks to defend themselves from the mosquitos; and even 

 this is not a sufficient security, for several of them die in con- 

 sequence of mortification produced by the bites of these fu- 

 rious blood-suckers. This fact is related by Dr. Clarke, and 

 to its probability his own painful experience enabled him to 

 speak. He informs us that the bodies of himself and his com- 

 panions, in spite of gloves, clothes, and handkerchiefs, were 

 rendered one entire wound, and the consequent excessive ir- 

 ritation and swelling excited a considerable degree of fever. 

 In a most sultry night, when not a breath of air was stirring, 

 exhausted by fatigue, pain and heat, he sought shelter in his 

 carriage : and, though almost suffocated, could not venture to 

 open a window for fear of the mosquitos. Swarms neverthe- 

 less found their way into his hiding-place ; and, in spite of 

 the handkerchiefs with which he had bound up his head, filled 



1 Acerbi's Travels, ii, 5. 34,35. 51. Linn. Flor. Lapp. 380, 381. Lack. 

 Lapp, ii 108. De Geer, vi. 303, 304. 2 Reaum. iv, 573. 



