356 Mr. W. S. MacLeay on the Insect 
and taon, are all the same insect, his description of which proves 
it to be no other than the Hæmatopota pluvialis, for which the 
Clegg remains to this day the well-known and appropriate 
provincial name—a name totally inapplicable to the modern 
Œstrus. 
I have before said, that Aristotle makes it quite evident that 
his oiergos and ps] were very nearly of the same construction. 
So near indeed in affinity do they appear to have been, that 
Æschylus would seem to consider them as identical in his Pro- 
metheus vinctus. From this poet we learn, that they are o£orrowor, 
and pierce the skin. Io says, 
© Oloronrarw dè béguarts dainaiay 
ITagänomoy wd relpeis ;” 
In short, wherever the va is distinguished from the ofergos, I 
take the former to be either a Chrysops or Hematopota*, or 
some insect near to them, and the latter to be some species of 
the modern genus Tabanus, probably the Tabanus bovinus Linn. 
or dun-fly, whose power of agitating cattle I have myself had 
occasion to witness. This last insect certainly appears to be the 
Asilus and Œstrus of Virgil. That this poet’s insect cannot be 
identical with any modern Œstrus is clear from his describing it 
to be in great plenty, and to be ** acerba sonans." Now the 
Œstrus bovis is very rare every where; and, according to Mr. 
B. Clark, makes no noise. The Œstrus equi is also silent in 
flying, as I have repeatedly myself observed. So that neither of 
these insects can be that which is celebrated by Virgil, whose 
description of the ability of the ancient o/zrzo; to make a particu- 
lar kind of humming noise is corroborated by the Scholiast before 
mentioned as well as by Ælian. 
* One circumstance which is mentioned by Ælian respecting the Myops, namely, 
that it Makes a louder hum than the Œstrus, is perhaps against its identity with the 
modern gente Homatopota: 
: Messrs. 
