THE GOLUBACSER FLY. 1 1 1 



does the buzz produce the terror which that of the zimb 

 does. It is not till after several days that the poison 

 beoins to manifest its effect: then the eves and nose dis- 

 charge freely, the animal swells, and becomes gradually 

 emaciated, till at length violent purging supervenes, and 

 the animal perishes, the whole blood and flesh being unna- 

 turally altered in condition.* 



Nor is Europe wholly free from such plagues. There 

 is, in Servia and the Banat, a minute fly,-f from whose 

 destructive assaults on the cattle the inhabitants have 

 suffered immense losses. A traveller, arriving at Golu- 

 bacs, on the Danube, thus speaks of it: — 



" Near this place we found a range of caverns, famous 

 for producing the poisonous fly, too well known in Servia 

 and Hungary under the name of the Golubacser fly. These 

 singular and venomous insects, somewhat resemblinor 

 musquitoes, generally make their appearance during the 

 first great heat of the summer, in such numbers as to 

 appear like vast volumes of smoke. Their attacks are 

 always directed against every description of quadruped, 

 and so potent is the poison they communicate, that even 

 an ox is unable to withstand its influence, for he always 

 expires in less than two hours. This results, not so much 

 from the virulence of the poison, as that every vulnerable 

 part is simultaneously covered with these most destructive 

 insects ; when the wretched animals, frenzied with pain, 

 rush wild through the fields till death puts a period to 



* Livingstone's Travels, p. 80, et seq. 

 f SimuUum Columbascheme, KolL 



