"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 {81}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