Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1878 — Insects in South America. [ARTICLE]

Insects in South America.

In reviewing “ Fifteen Thousand Miles on the Amazon and Its Tributaries,” the Spectator refers to the insect life of that region, of which we have had occasion frequently to speak. “ The narrative,” it says*, “ impresses one with ah idea of perfect truthfulness, and certainly does not stimulate one’s desire to visit the localities spoken of. In the first place, the journey was nothing but one long martyrdom from insect tormentors. Imagination fails to conceive their numbers and variety; mosquitoes, some kinds of which have bills of immense length, and inflict a sting as sharp as if they had been plunged into strong acid; ticks, of several varieties; venomous ants; minute bees, which persist in drinking the moisture from the human eye; and large bees, more like beetles, that can hit a blow by their own impetus which is long remembered by the unhappy receiver; wasps, of all sorts, from the little ones that make their nests under single leaves, and can be removed without much danger, if you whistle to them while carefully breaking off the twig upon which they are found, to the fierce marabuntas, which, when they attack in numbers, can easily deal out death

to their enemies, one single sting causing violent .pain and swelling; mayflies, attracted'by light, coming on board in thousands of an evening, and falling into the food, so that it was sometimes found preferable to consume dinner almost in the dark; motucasof two kinds, species of cow-flies, which not only give 1 a painful bite, but arc able to suck a I large amount of blood, if undiscovered; ana lastly, perhaps the worst pest of ' all, the detestable pium—a disgusting ' little black fly—the puncture of which, at first scarcely noticeable, leaves behind ft, under the skin, a little round ] spot of blood, and as these creatures attack the unfortunate human being in I myriads, it is not uncommon to see I persons whose wrists and necks are al- . most black with their wounds, the irritation from them being also quite unbearable. The pium infests the whole of the Upper Amazon and its tributaries, beginning its work at six o’clock in the morning, and ending at the same time in the evening. Happily, however, this pest has its enemy, in the shape of a small ichneumon fly, which seizes it, tucks it between it* legs, and carries it off, to store up as food for its own larvie. To all these insect tormentors, as well as to noxious animals of every kind, the Amazonians apply the comprehensive Portuguese word Bicho, which may be taken to mean a disagreeable creature of any species save the human one; and, as has been said, bichos have pretty much their own way at present in these regions, although when the forests are somewhat cleared, i t may be hoped that these plagues will also take their departure.”— Chicago Tribune. —Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines is a little jnore than seventy-three years old,