DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



99 



municated by the scorpion of warmer climates it produces 

 more baneful effects. The sting of certain kinds common in 

 South America causes fevers, numbness in various parts of 

 the body, tumours in the tongue, and dimness of sight, which 

 symptoms last from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The 

 only means of saving the lives of our soldiers who were 

 stung by them in Egypt, was amputation. One species is 

 said to occasion madness ; and the black scorpion, both of 

 South America and Ceylon, frequently inflicts a mortal wound. ^ 

 No known animal is more cruel and ferocious in its manners ; 

 they kill and devour their own young without pity as soon as 

 they are born, and they are equally savage to their fellows when 

 grown up. Terrible however and revolting as these creatures 

 appear, we are gravely told by Naude, that there is a species 

 of scorpion in Italy which is domesticated, and put between 

 the sheets to cool the beds during the heats of summer ! ! ^ 



I must next say something of insects that annoy us solely 

 by their jaios. Of this description is Galeodes araneoides^ 

 which is related to the scorpion, although devoid of a sting. 

 The bite of this animal, which is a native of the Cape of Good 

 Hope and of Russia^, is repsesented to be often fatal both to 

 man and beast. Another species of Galeodes is described by 

 Professor Lichtenstein, which from the trivial name that he 

 has given it (^fatalis), may be supposed to be as venomous as 

 the former.* 



The bite of one of the centipedes (^Scolopendra morsitans) 

 —the under-jaws, or rather arms, of which are armed with a 

 strong claw, furnished like the sting of the scorpion with an 

 orifice, visible under a common lens, from which poison issues 

 — is less tremendous than that of the animal last mentioned: 

 but though not mortal, its wounds are more painful than 

 those produced by the sting of the scorpion ; and as these 



1 Ulloa's Voy. i. 61, 62. Dr. Clarke's Travels, \. 486. Amoreux, 197. Mr. 

 W. S. MacLeay relates to rne that soon after his arrival at the Havana he was 

 stung by an immense scorpion, but was agreeably surprised to find the pain 

 considerably less than the sting of a wasp, and of incomparably shorter duration. 



2 Andrew's Anecdotes, ^21. See on the subject of Scorpions, Amoreux, 41 — 54. 

 176—205. 



3 Fab. Suppl. 294. 2. 4 Catal. Ham. 1797, 151—195. 



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