DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



101 



Thiebaut de Berneaud, in his Voyage to Elba affirms that 

 in the Yolterrano he knew that several country people and 

 domestic animals died in consequence of it. And, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Jackson, a spider, called there the Tendaraman, 

 is found in Marocco, which has venomous powers equally- 

 formidable. The bite of this insect, which is about the size 

 and colour of a hornet but rounder, and spins a web so fine 

 as to be almost invisible, is said to be so poisonous that the 

 person bitten survives but a few hours. In the cork forests 

 the sportsman, eager in his pursuit of game, frequently carries 

 away on his garments this fatal insect, which i& asserted 

 always to make towards the head before inflicting its deadly 

 wound. - 



I suspect you will think this list long enough ; and I believe 

 it includes the most remarkable insects that assail the surface 

 of our bodies, to answer either the demands of hunger or the 

 stimulus of revenge. There is however a third class of insect 

 annoyers, as I observed at the beginning of this letter, which, 

 though they neither make us their food, nor attack us under 

 the impulse of fear or revenge, incommode us extremely in 

 other ways. These must now be detailed to you. 



How extremely unpleasant is the sensation which that 

 very minute fly ( Thrips physapus) excites in sultry weather, 

 merely by creeping over our skin ! I have sometimes found 

 this almost intolerable. A similar torment reckoned by Ulloa, 

 a kind of Mosquito, infests the inhabitants of Carthagena in 

 South America. They are there called Manias Blancas, and 

 creeping between the threads of the gauze curtains that keep 

 off the former pest, though they do not bite, occasion an 

 itching that is dreadfully tormenting.'^ But these are nothing 

 compared with the teasing attacks of another gnat {Simulium 

 reptans), which, as Linne informs us, who misnamed it a Culex, 

 is so incredibly numerous in Lapland, as entirely to cover a 

 man's body, turning a white dress into a black one, occupying 



' p. 31, 2 Jackson's Marocco, second edit. 



Ulloa, i. 64. Probably the Cafafi, a white fly noticed by Humboldt, is 

 synonymous with this of Ulloa, which could only be prevented from creeping 

 between the threads of the curtains by keeping them wet. Personal Narrative, 

 E. T. V. 107. 



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