Venomous Bites.

Venomous Bites. The most important group, snake-bites, the poison contained and the antidote, have been already treated at SNAKES. Others will be found dealt with under the heads of the creatures that inflict them—as at SCORPION, BEE, ANT, HORNET, WASP, TARANTULA, TSETSE, &c. The number of insects actually poisonous is few; in ants, bees, and wasps there is real venom (formic acid); but many injurious insects annoy otherwise than by injecting poison into the wound (see BOT). The pain of the mosquito bite is probably due to the sawing motion of his proboscis. But any biting insect, such as a gadfly, may, if it have formerly settled on a festering carcass, carry and inject into a delicate skin a deadly poison not its own; deaths have occurred from this cause in England. See POISON, STINGING-CELLS, WOUND.