"Sometimes they proceed, like those I have mentioned in the preface to my first volume, driving all the inhabitants out of a town in a few hours, to a scene of which Mr. Smeathman was an eye-witness; and in other instances, as within the last twenty years, in some of the Caribbee Islands, like a slow but irresistible fire, they gradually, in two or three years, take possession of the land, and carry death and destruction to every kind of animals; so that not only pigeons and fowls, lambs and kids, but even calves and foals, which have been brought forth in the night, have been destroyed before the rising of the sun; and the inhabitants themselves, though they placed the posts of their beds in troughs of water, were driven out of them by these inevitable disturbers. This slow but enormous increase of ants in some of the sugar islands was unknown before the conclusion of the last peace; since which time they seem, in conjunction with some other insects, to have taken possession of many valuable sugar estates, and, by sucking the canes, have rendered them incapable of yielding any of that rich juice from whence this vegetable salt is extracted.
"In consequence of this mischievous quality, estates which, by their usual produce, have cleared to the proprietors eight or ten thousand pounds a year, when overrun by these vermin, have not been able to pay the expense of cultivation, except the produce has been changed by planting cotton or indigo, which have been found to suffer much less from their depredations; but, unhappily, most of the planters were ruined before they could submit to give up the cultivation of sugar, which is by much the most profitable.
"It is not to be supposed, that hot countries are at all times infested to this degree. They never are, however, without an astonishing number of these insects, which no art, labour, or expense, can totally exclude from the dwellings of the inhabitants. The number of different species is not yet known, and is so great, added to the minuteness of most of them, that it probably never will be discovered with any degree of certainty. There are not less than fifteen or twenty species, which find their way into the houses. These are not only to be distinguished by their size, figure, and colour, but by their different properties. Some are near an inch long, from which, to that of being scarce visible to the naked eye, are various sizes. Some are long and slender, others short and thick; some are elegantly shaped and highly polished; while others are, according to vulgar apprehensions, deformed, armed with spines, and covered with bristly or coarse and rough skins. Some species also are black as the deepest jet; others of the deepest brown, or of different shades till they approach to yellow; and not a few are variegated, having some of the prismatic colours in full glow. They vary as much in their nature and dispositions: some destroy fresh collected plants; and, in spite of weights laid upon the books in which they are placed to dry, get in, cut the leaves and flowers in pieces, and carry them away. Others, of different species, attack all sorts of victuals, particularly sweet things, such as sugar and fruits. Mr. Smeathman has had large sugar-dishes emptied by these insects in one night, when the least opening has been left; and it is not easy to make any tin canister, or other vessel, close enough to exclude these insidious plunderers; so that the loss sustained in this article is often very great. Some of them will assail the side-boards, and cover every wine-glass that has had wine or punch left in it; nay, innumerable multitudes will even attack the liquors on your table, and, if you are not attentive, drown themselves in the very bowls and bottles before you. Some stragglers frequently disturb you by creeping over your skin, and interrupt your sleep or your meditations by biting, which, however, give pain but for a moment; while others, though of the smallest size, with a sort of malignant vengeance, creep under your clothes, and, by means of stings invisible to the unassisted eye, inject a most acrid venom, which causes a pain as sharp as a small spark of fire, lasting for some hours, and even a day or two after being stung, the pain of which is much increased by irritating the part. Some of the larger sorts also cause by their stings a pain which, for some moments, is scarcely less than that of a bee of the same size; but it ceases in a few minutes, without leaving any inflammation behind. The different manners of this large and sagacious tribe of insects are, according to my friend's account, exceedingly various and amusing, but much too long for this occasion; neither would it be proper for me to enter farther into an account of them, as that gentleman purposes to treat minutely on their various histories in his Voyages and Travels: a book which, he informs me, is in some forwardness, and will doubtless afford great entertainment and information to the curious part of mankind."
RAPHIGASTER VALIDUS.
Plate [XXXVIII]. fig. 4.
Order: Hemiptera. Suborder: Heteroptera. Section: Geocorisa, Latr. Family: Scutati, Burm. Pentatomidæ, Leach.
Genus. Raphigaster, Laporte.
Raphigaster Validus. Pallidus, capite, pustulis duabus pronoti et dentibus lateralibus obtusis, scutello (apice excepto) elytrisque chalybeis, abdominis lateribus nigro maculatis. (Long. Corp. 1 unc.)
Syn. Cimex variegatus, Drury, App. vol. 2.
Cimex validus, Drury, App. vol. 1. (pl. 45. fig. 6. eadem). Klug. Burm. vol. 2. p. 365.