dibles. Upon wetting my fingers more than once, to take it up when it had fallen from a table upon which it was placed, the saline taste with which it was imbued was so powerful that it was some time before it was dissipated from my mouth. I shall only mention one more instance, because it is a singular one. The larva of Elophilus pendulus, F., a fly peculiarly formed by nature for inhabiting fluids, has been found in the stomach of a woman".

You will smile when I tell you that I have met with the prescription of a famous urine-doctor, in which he recommends to his credulous patient to take a certain number of sow bugs per diem, by this name distinguishing, as I suppose, Oniscus Armadillo, L., once a very favourite remedy. What effect they produced in this case I was not informed; but the learned Bonnet relates that he had seen a certificate of an English physician, dated July 1763, stating that, some time before, a young woman who had swallowed these animals alive, as is usually done, threw up a prodigious number of them of all sizes, which must have bred in her stomach ".-Another apterous species appears to have been detected in a still more remarkable situation. Hermann, the author of the admirable Mémoire Apterologique, whose untimely death is so much to be lamented, informs us that an Acarus figured and described in his work (A. marginatus, H.) was observed by his artist running on the corpus callosum of the brain of a patient in the military hospital at Strasbourg, which had been opened but a minute before and the two hemispheres and the pia mater just separated. He adds that this is not the first time that insects have been found in

a

* Philos. Mag. ix. 366.

Bonnet, v. 144.

the brain. Cornelius Gemma, in his Cosmocritica, p. 241, says that on dissecting the brain of a woman there were found in it abundance of vermicles and punaises.

It was customary in many countries in ancient times to punish certain malefactors by exposing them to be devoured by wild beasts: but to expose them to insects for the same purpose was a refinement in cruelty, which seems to have been peculiar to the despots of Persia. We are informed that the most severe punishment amongst the Persians was that of shutting up the offender between two boats of equal size; they laid him in one of them upon his back, and covered him with the other, his hands, feet, and head being left bare. His face, which was placed full in the sun, they moistened with honey, thus inviting the flies and wasps, which tormented him no less than the swarms of maggots that were bred in his excrements and body, and devoured him to the very entrails. He was compelled to take as much food as was necessary to support life, and thus existed sometimes for several days. Plutarch informs us that Mithridates, whom Artaxerxes Longimanus condemned to this punishment, lived seventeen days in the utmost agony; and that, the uppermost boat being taken off at his death, they found his flesh all consumed, and myriads of worms gnawing his bowels. Could any natural objects be made more horrible and effectual instruments of torture than insects were in this most diabolical invention of tyranny?

In this enumeration of evils derived from insects, I must not wholly pass over the serious and sometimes fatal effects produced upon some persons by eating honey, a Mém. Apterolog. 79.

b Universal History, iv. 70. Ed. 1779.

or even by drinking mead. I once knew a lady upon whom these acted like poison, and have heard of instances in which death was the consequence. Sometimes, when bees extract their honey from poisonous plants, such results have not been confined to individuals of a particular habit or constitution. A remarkable proof of this is given by Dr. Barton in the fifth volume of The American Philosophical Transactions. In the autumn and winter of the year 1790, an extensive mortality was produced amongst those who had partaken of the honey collected in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia. The attention of the American Government was excited by the general distress, a minute inquiry into the cause of the mortality ensued, and it was satisfactorily ascertained that the honey had been chiefly extracted from the flowers of Kalmia latifolia.

Amongst other direct injuries occasioned by these creatures, perhaps, out of regard for the ladies, I ought to notice the alarm which many of them occasion to the loveliest part of the creation. When some females retire from society to avoid a wasp; others faint at the sight of a spider; and others, again, die with terror if they hear a death-watch: these groundless apprehensions and superstitious alarms are as much real evils to those who feel them, as if they were well founded. But having already adverted to this subject, I shall here only quote the observation of a wise man, that "Fear is a betraying of the succours that reason offereth 2." The best remedy, therefore, in such cases is going to reason for succour. In a few instances, indeed, the evil may take root in a

Wisd. xvii. 12.

constitutional defect, for there seems to be some foundation for the doctrine of natural antipathies: but, generally speaking, in consequence of the increased attention to Natural History, the reign of imaginary evils is ceasing amongst us, and what used to shake the stout hearts of our superstitious ancestors with anile terrors, is become a subject of interesting inquiry to their better informed descendants, even of the weaker sex.

And now, my friend, I flatter myself you feel disposed to own the truth of my position, however it might startle you at first, and will candidly acknowledge that I have proved the empire of these despised insects over man's person and that, instead of being a race of insignificant creatures, which we may safely overlook, as having no concern with, they may, in the hands of Divine Providence, and even of man, become to us fearful instruments of evil and of punishment. I shall next endeavour to give you some idea of the indirect injuries which they occasion us by attacking our property, or interfering with our pleasure or comfort-but this must be the subject of another letter.

I am, &c.

LETTER V.

INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.

INDIRECT INJURIES.

HAVING detailed to you the direct injuries which we suffer from insects, I am now to call your attention to their indirect attacks upon us, or the injury which they do our property; and under this view also you will own, with the fullest conviction, that they are not beings that can with prudence or safety be disregarded or despised. Our property, at least that part exposed to the annoyance of these creatures, may be regarded as consisting of animal and vegetable productions, and that in two states; when they are living, namely, and after they are dead. I shall therefore endeavour to give you a sketch of the mischief which they occasion, first to our living animal property, then to our living vegetable property; and lastly to our dead stock, whether animal or vegetable.

Next to our own persons, the animals which we employ in our business or pleasures, or fatten for food, individually considered, are the most valuable part of our possessions and at certain seasons, hosts of insects of various kinds are incessant in their assaults upon most of them. To begin with that noble animal the horse.See him, when turned out to his pasture, unable to touch a morsel of the food he has earned by his labours. He flies