or NIGUA, the Indian name of an insect common in Mexico, and also found in other hot countries, where it is called pique, is an exceeding small animal, not very unlike a flea, and is bred in the dust. It fixes upon the feet, and breaking insensibly the cuticle, it nestles betwixt that and the true skin, which also, unless it is immediately taken out, it breaks, and pierces at last to the flesh, multiplying with a rapidity almost incredible. It is seldom discovered until it pierces the true skin, when it causes an intolerable itching. These insects, with their astonishing multiplication, would soon depopulate those countries, were it easy to avoid them, or were the inhabitants less dexterous in getting them out before they begin to spread. On the other hand, nature, in order to lessen the evil, has not only denied them wings, but even that conformation of the legs and those strong muscles which are given to the flea for leaping. The poor, however, who are in some measure doomed to live in the dust, and to an habitual neglect of their persons, suffer these insects sometimes to multiply so far as to make large holes in their flesh, and even to occasion dangerous wounds.