92 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



his mouth, nostrils, and ears. In the midst of his torment he 

 succeeded in lighting a lamp, which was extinguished in a 

 moment by such a prodigious number of these insects, that 

 their carcases actually filled the glass chimney, and formed a 

 large conical heap over the burner. The noise they make in 

 flying cannot be conceived by persons who have only heard 

 gnats in England. It is to all that hear it a most fearful 

 sound. ^ Travellers and mariners who have visited warmer 

 climates give a similar account of the torments there inflicted 

 by these little demons. One traveller in Africa complains 

 that after a fifty miles journey they would not sufler him to 

 rest, and that his face and hands appeared, from their bites, 

 as if he was infected with the small-pox in its worst stage.^ 

 In the East, at Batavia, Dr. Arnold, a most attentive and 

 accurate observer, relates that their bite is the most venomous 

 he ever felt, occasioning a most intolerable itching, which 

 lasts several days. The sight or sound of a single one either 

 prevented him from going to bed for a whole night, or obliged 

 him to rise many times. This species, which I have ex- 

 amined, is distinct from the common gnat, and appears to be 

 nondescript. It approaches nearest to C. annulatus, but the 

 wings are black and not spotted. And Captain Stedman in 

 America, as a proof of the dreadful state to which he and his 

 soldiers were reduced by them, mentions that they were forced 

 to sleep with their heads thrust into holes made in the earth 

 with their bayonets, and their necks wrapped round with their 

 hammocks.^ 



From Humboldt also we learn that " between the little 

 harbour of Higuerote and the mouth of the Rio Unare the 

 wretched inhabitants are accustomed to stretch themselves on 

 the ground, and pass the night buried in the sand three or four 

 inches deep, leaving out the head only, which they cover with 

 a handkerchief." This illustrious traveller has given an ac- 

 count in detail of these insect plagues, by which it appears 



1 Dr. Clarke's Travels, i. 388. 2 Jackson's Marocco, 57. 



3 Travels, ii. 93. Mr. W. S. MacLeay, in a letter I received from him, ob- 

 served, speaking of his residence at the Havana : " The disagreeables are ants, 

 scorpions, mygales, and mosquitos. The latter were quite a pest on my first 

 arrival within the tropics ; but now I mind them about as much as I did gnats 

 n England." 



