The Black Flies and Buffalo Gnats 



On one occasion in the South the buffalo gnat plague was averted 



by the removal of a jam of logs 

 in a sluggish bayou ever which 

 the water ran shallowly with 

 sufficient speed to make a per- 

 fect breeding place. When the 

 logs were removed and the old 

 sluggish current was resumed 

 the breeding places had been 

 abolished. In the typical life 

 history which follows, the issu- 

 ing of the fly is mentioned but 

 it should be stated here that 

 with another species in the 

 southwest Mr. H. G. Hubbard 

 while watching the surface of 

 the water saw adults issue in 

 great numbers with such force 

 and velocity that as he ex- 

 pressed it they appeared as if 

 shot out of a gun. 



Fig. 70. — Simulium invenustum. 

 (From U. S. Dept. Agr.j 



Typical Life History 



(Simulium pictipes Hagen.^ 



The larvae of this species occur abundantly on the rocks in 

 the hillside streams about Ithaca, 

 N. Y., where the writer was 

 familiar with them as a boy. The 

 boys who bathed in the streams 

 in that region feared these larvae, 

 called them leeches and supposed 

 that they would attach them- 

 selves to the skin and suck blood. 

 They are, however, perfectly 

 harmless. The life history of 

 the species has been carefully 

 worked out by MissR. O. Phillips 

 in an unpublished paper from 



121 



Fig. 71. — Simul'nmi invenustum, male. 

 fFrom U. S. Dept. Agr.j 



