Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 111 of 208 - First - Home
It Were To Be Wished That A Learned
Entomologist Could Study On The Spot The Specific Differences Of These
Noxious Insects,* Which In The Torrid Zone, In Spite Of Their Minute
Size, Act An Important Point In The Economy Of Nature.
(* The mosquito
bovo or tenbiguai; the melero, which always settles upon the eyes; the
tempranero, or putchiki; the jejen;
The gnat rivau, the great zancudo,
or matchaki; the cafafi, etc.) What appeared to us very remarkable,
and is a fact known to all the missionaries, is, that the different
species do not associate together, and that at different hours of the
day you are stung by distinct species. Every time that the scene
changes, and, to use the simple expression of the missionaries, other
insects mount guard, you have a few minutes, often a quarter of an
hour, of repose. The insects that disappear have not their places
instantly supplied by their successors. From half-past-six in the
morning till five in the afternoon, the air is filled with mosquitos;
which have not, as some travellers have stated, the form of our
gnats,* (* Culex pipiens. This difference between mosquito (little
fly, simulium) and zancudo (gnat, culex) exists in all the Spanish
colonies. The word zancudo signifies long legs, qui tiene las zancas
largas. The mosquitos of the Orinoco are the moustiques; the zancudos
are the maringouins of French travellers.) but that of a small fly.
They are simuliums of the family Nemocera of the system of Latreille.
Their sting is as painful as that of the genus Stomox. It leaves a
little reddish brown spot, which is extravased and coagulated blood,
where their proboscis has pierced the skin. An hour before sunset a
species of small gnats, called tempraneros,* because they appear also
at sunrise, take the place of the mosquitos. (* Which appear at an
early hour (temprano). Some persons say, that the zancudo is the same
as the tempranero, which returns at night, after hiding itself for
some time. I have doubts of this identity of the species; the pain
caused by the sting of the two insects appeared to me different.)
Their presence scarcely lasts an hour and a half; they disappear
between six and seven in the evening, or, as they say here, after the
Angelus (a la oracion). After a few minutes' repose, you feel yourself
stung by zancudos, another species of gnat with very long legs. The
zancudo, the proboscis of which contains a sharp-pointed sucker,
causes the most acute pain, and a swelling that remains several weeks.
Its hum resembles that of the European gnat, but is louder and more
prolonged. The Indians pretend to distinguish the zancudos and the
tempraneros by their song; the latter are real twilight insects, while
the zancudos are most frequently nocturnal insects, and disappear
toward sunrise.
In our way from Carthagena to Santa Fe de Bogota, we observed that
between Mompox and Honda, in the valley of the Rio Magdalena, the
zancudos darkened the air from eight in the evening till midnight;
that towards midnight they diminished in number, and were hidden for
three or four hours; and lastly that they returned in crowds, about
four in the morning. What is the cause of these alternations of motion
and rest? Are these animals fatigued by long flight? It is rare on the
Orinoco to see real gnats by day; while at the Rio Magdalena we were
stung night and day, except from noon till about two o'clock. The
zancudos of the two rivers are no doubt of different species.
We have seen that the insects of the tropics everywhere follow a
certain standard in the periods at which they alternately arrive and
disappear. At fixed and invariable hours, in the same season, and the
same latitude, the air is peopled with new inhabitants, and in a zone
where the barometer becomes a clock,* (* By the extreme regularity of
the horary variations of the atmospheric pressure.) where everything
proceeds with such admirable regularity, we might guess blindfold the
hour of the day or night, by the hum of the insects, and by their
stings, the pain of which differs according to the nature of the
poison that each species deposits in the wound.
At a period when the geography of animals and of plants had not yet
been studied, the analogous species of different climates were often
confounded. It was believed that the pines and ranunculuses, the
stags, the rats, and the tipulary insects of the north of Europe, were
to be found in Japan, on the ridge of the Andes, and at the Straits of
Magellan. Justly celebrated naturalists have thought that the zancudo
of the torrid zone was the gnat of our marshes, become more vigorous,
more voracious, and more noxious, under the influence of a burning
climate. This is a very erroneous opinion. I carefully examined and
described upon the spot those zancudos, the stings of which are most
tormenting. In the rivers Magdalena and Guayaquil alone there are five
distinct species.
The culices of South America have generally the wings, corslet, and
legs of an azure colour, ringed and variegated with a mixture of spots
of metallic lustre. Here as in Europe, the males, which are
distinguished by their feathered antennae, are extremely rare; you are
seldom stung except by females. The preponderance of this sex explains
the immense increase of the species, each female laying several
hundred eggs. In going up one of the great rivers of America, it is
observed, that the appearance of a new species of culex denotes the
proximity of a new stream flowing in. I shall mention an instance of
this curious phenomenon. The Culex lineatus, which belongs to the Cano
Tamalamec, is only perceived in the valley of the Rio Grande de la
Magdalena, at a league north of the junction of the two rivers; it
goes up, but scarcely ever descends the Rio Grande. It is thus, that,
on a principal vein, the appearance of a new substance in the gangue
indicates to the miner the neighbourhood of a secondary vein that
joins the first.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 111 of 208
Words from 112238 to 113258
of 211397