DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 93 



that amongst them there are diurnal, crepuscular, and noc- 

 turnal species, or genera : the Mosquitos or Simulia flying in 

 the day ; the Temporo,neros, probably a kind of Culex flying 

 during twilight ; and the Zancudos or Culices in the night. 

 So that there is no rest for the inhabitants from their torment 

 day or night, except for a short interval between the retreat 

 of one species and the attack of another. We learn from this 

 author that the sting or bite of the Simulium is as bad as that 

 of the Stomoxys before noticed.^ 



The Rhagio Columbaschensis of Fabricius, a native of 

 Banat and the adjacent parts of the banks of the Danube, is a 

 species of Simulium, and one of the most obnoxious of all the 

 insects Avhich attack man and domestic animals. (See KoUar's 

 work on Obnoxious Insects ; a translation of part of which, 

 by the Misses Loudon, has recently been published. The 

 work of Pohl and Kollar on the obnoxious insects of Brazil 

 also contains many notices of their attacks upon man.) 



It is not therefore incredible that Sapor, king of Persia, as 

 is related, should have been compelled to raise the siege of 

 Nisibis by a plague of gnats, which attacking his elephants 

 and beasts of burthen, so caused the rout of his army, what- 

 ever we may think of the miracle to which it was attributed^; 

 nor that the inhabitants of various cities, as Mouflet has col- 

 lected from diflerent authors^, shoiild, by an extraordinary 

 multiplication of this plague, have been compelled to desert 

 them ; or that by their power to do mischief, like other con- 

 querors who have been the torment of the human race, they 

 should have attained to fame, and have given their name to 

 bays, towns, and even to considerable territories.^ 



1 Humboldt's Personal Narrative, E. T. v. 87. Most writers by the term 

 mosquitos mean gnats ; and for them it is here chiefly employed, but may be 

 regarded as including both plagues. 



2 Theodorit. Hist. Eccl. 1. ii. c. 30. 3 MoufFet, 85. Amoreux, 119. 



4 Viz. Mos^MiVo Bay in St. Christopher's ; Mosquitos, a town in the Island of 

 Cuba ; and the Mosquito country in North America. Though in many cases 

 it may be impossible to prevent the attacks of gnats, it is certain that a little 

 care would often secure the inmates of houses, distant from stagnant waters, from 

 these pests, for which they have solely to thank their open water-tubs or cisterns 

 in their gardens, in which they are constantly breeding. Dr. Franklin, whose 

 admirable habit of minute observation embraced all subjects, long since pointed 

 this out, and I myself found that the gnats which so annoyod us in the house 

 we occupied at Pisa late in the autumn of 1830, as to require gauze mosquito 

 curtains to all the beds, though it was far distant from the river or any pond, 



