tailed Oistros by the Ancients. 285 



monies are various, and militate against each other ; but none 

 are descriptive of the true fly, which we now fully know. 

 Surely such a conclusion is more natural and just, than to sup- 

 pose these conflicting descriptions true, and that the poets and 

 common observers were false witnesses. 



I now proceed to give what Virgil says respecting the name 

 of it among the ancients, and the tumult it occasions ; and of 

 which no sweat-sucking Tabanus, Conops, or modern Asilus, 

 can in any way be the cause. 



*' Est lucos Silari circa, ilicibusque virentem 

 Plurimus Alburnum volitans, cui nomen Asilo 

 Romanum est, (Estron Graii vertere vocantes : 

 Asper, acerba sorians : quo tota exterrita sylvis 

 Diffugiunt armenta, furit mugitibus iEther 

 Concussus, sylvaeque, et sicci ripa Tanagri." 



Georg. lib. iii. v. 146. 



From this admirable description, it is clearly manifest that 

 Asilus was the Roman name for the fly which agitates the 

 cattle ; and it is equally clear that (Estros was the Greek name 

 for it 



Not much weight is due to the observation, that Homer's 

 insect was not the modern CEstrus, because he mentions the 

 spring as the season of its appearance, since he also adds, in 

 the same line, ore r ^oltol (xotxpol nshovTcti, " when the days are 

 long ;" nor that Shakespeare did not use the word Brize for 

 the same insect, merely because he has assigned its appear- 

 ance to the month of June, when it more often appears now 

 in July. Indeed the alteration of style will account for this 

 difference. But the same poet uses the word in another place, 

 where the allusion is too distinct to be mistaken : 



" The herd hath more annoyance by the Brize, 

 Than by the Tiger." Troilus and Cressida. 



And again in an old Play, quoted by Archdeacon Nares in his 

 Glossary, the following use of the word occurs, 



" I will put the Brize in 's tail, shall set him gadding presently." 



Now if MacLeay or Latreille, who entertains a similar opi- 

 nion, had ever been as much among cattle on the heaths, as 

 my pursuits have led me, they would have long since obtained 

 a practical acquaintance with the effects produced by these in- 

 sects, and would not have been led to suppose that the Tabani, 

 Conopses, or Culices, were the object of poetic description, or 

 have made any mistake between the effects of one and the 

 other. When the Tabani and Conopses have come and set- 

 tled in great numbers on the back and sides of the animal, he 

 would, as I have often witnessed, scarcely regard them. A 



toss 



