96 



DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



withdrew from between my fingers with surprising force, 

 and then, as if in revenge, stung me. Pompilus viaticus, one 

 of the spider-wasps, once, in this way, gave me acute pain. 

 Mr. W. S. Mac Leay states that at the Havana he was once 

 stung by a gigantic Pompilus (probably P. Heros), from 

 which he suffered a very short-lived pain, but the wound 

 bled as if punctured by a pin. The bleeding, he conjectures, 

 carried off the venom. But the insects which in this respect 

 principally attract our notice by exciting our fears, are the 

 hive-bee, the wasp, and the hornet. The first of these, the 

 bee, sometimes manifests an antipathy to particular indi- 

 viduals, whom it attacks and wounds without provocation ; 

 but the two last, though apparently the most formidable, are 

 not so ill-tempered as they are conceived to be, seldom mo- 

 lesting those who do not first interfere with or disturb them. 

 We learn from Scripture that the hornet (but whether it was 

 the common species is uncertain) was employed by Providence 

 to drive out the impious inhabitants of Canaan, or subdue 

 them under the hands of the Israelites.^ — The effect pro- 

 duced by the sting of these animals is different in different 

 persons. To some they occasion only a very slight incon- 

 venience or a momentary pain ; others feel the smart of the 

 wounds which they inflict for several days, and are thrown 

 into fevers by them ; and to some they have even proved 

 fatal.^ Yet these insects are certainly, in general, but a 

 trifling evil. They become, however, especially wasps, a 

 very serious one to many, from the mere dread of being 

 stung by them, even though they should not carry their 

 fears to the same length with the lady mentioned by Dr. 

 Fairfax ^, in the Philosophical Transactions, who had such a 

 horror of them that during the season in which they abound 

 in houses, she always confined herself to her apartment. 

 An insect of a tribe never before suspected of being en- 

 dowed with such a mode of annoyance, one of the order 

 Lepidoptera, found at the Cape of Good Hope, is said to 

 defend itself when captured by stinging, whence it is there 

 named the Bee-moth, and it is added that the puncture, which 



1 Deut. vii. 20. Josh. xxiv. 1 2. 2 Amoreux, 242. 



3 Philos. Trans, i. 201 . 



