Did you really think she meant an insect member of the Order Hemiptera?  There
is a good chance she did not know the english term 'scorpion' and so used the
general term 'bug'. Even here in our so-called more educated world most people
who do not have a natural history background call all crawly things 'bugs'.  I
bet 95 percent of educated persons in any country do not know that a scorpion is
not an insect.  I would consider the word 'bug' from a layperson in any country
to mean any crawly thing.  Your expecting otherwise might have resulted in a
more painful experience!

"Orstan, Aydin" wrote:

> "Natives" usually give good advice, although their terminology &
> explanations are likely to be crude, unscientific & confusing. One day last
> August I was collecting land snails with a friend along the wall of an old
> monastery in Istanbul, Turkey. A woman looking over the wall of the
> monastery saw that we were not wearing gloves & warned us about the "bugs"
> that could bite. Knowing that there are no biting insects that live under
> the rocks in that part of the world, we ignored her advice. The next day, at
> nearby locations I started finding tiny (about 1 cm long) scorpions under
> the rocks. The woman at the monastery probably had the scorpions in mind,
> but in her terminology they fell under "bugs".
>
> So the "poisonous parasite" that the speaker was warned about could have
> been a parasitic worm that sickens the animals.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Carol B Simpson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 8:55 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: land snail parasites
> >
> >
> > It was my understanding she didn't eat the snails, but just
> > collected them.
> > And she was warned by the natives that some of them carried a
> > poisonous
> > parasite.
> >
> > Carol
> >