Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise,
Their murmuring small trumpets sownden wide,
Whiles in the air their clust’ring army flies,
That as a cloud doth seem to dim the skies;
Ne man nor beast may rest or take repast,
For their sharp wounds and noyous injuries,
Till the fierce northern wind with blust’ring blast
Doth blow them quite away, and in the ocean cast.
Ligon, in his History of Barbados, makes the following curious observation relative to a species of insects which he calls “Flyes,” but which are more probably Gnats or Mosquitoes: “There is not only a race of all these kinds, that go in a generation, but upon new occasions, new kinds; as, after a great downfall of rain, when the ground has been
extremely moistened, and softened with the water, I have walk’d out upon a dry walk (which I made my self) in an evening, and there came about me an army of such Flyes, as I had never seen before, nor after; and they rose, as I conceived, out of the earth: They were as big bodied as Bees, but far larger wings, harm they did us none, but only lighted on us; their colour between ash-colour and purple.”[936]