Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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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.
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