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 415 of 777 - First - Home
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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 415 of 777
Words from 112347 to 112640
of 211397