INDIRECT INJURIES CxVUSED BY INSECTS. 83 



Small as this insect is, we must acknowledge the elephant, rhinoceros', 

 lion, and tiger, vastly his inferiors. The appearance, nay the very sound 

 of it, occasions more trepidation, movements, and disorder, both in the 

 human and brute creation, than whole herds of the most ferocious wild 

 beasts in tenfold greater nmnbers than they ever are would produce. As 

 soon as this plague appears, and their buzzing is heard, all the cattle for- 

 sake their food, and run wildly about the plain till they die worn out with 

 fatigue, fright and hunger. No remedy remains for the residents on such 

 spots but to leave the black earth and hasten down to the sands of Atbara, 

 and there they remain while the rains last. Camels, and even elephants 

 and riiinoceroses, though the two last coat themselves with an armour 

 of mud, are attacked by this wingeil assassin, and afflicted with numerous 

 tumours. All the inhabitants of the sea-coast of Melinda down to Cape 

 Gardefui, to Saba and the South of the Red Sea, are obliged in the be- 

 ginning of the rainy season to remove to the next sand to prevent all 

 their stock of cattle from being destroyed. This is no partial emigration 

 — the inhabitants of all the countries from the mountains of Abyssinia 

 northward, to the confluence of the Nile and Astaboras, are once a year 

 obliged to change their abode and seek protection in the sands of Beja ; 

 nor is there any alternative or means of avoiding this, though a hostile 

 band were in the way capable of spoiling them of half their substance.*^ 

 This fly is truly a Beelzebub^; and perhaps it was this, or some species 

 related to it, that was the prototype of the Philistine idol worshipped 

 under that name and in the form of a fly. 



I must not conclude this subject of insects hurtful to our cattle without 

 noticing a beetle much talked of by the ancients for its mischievous pro- 

 perties in this respect. You will soon and rightly conjecture that I am 

 speaking of the Buprestis'^, so called from the injury which it has been 

 supposed to occasion to oxen or kine. 



Modern writers have been much divided in their opinion to what genus 

 this celebrated insect belongs. All, indeed, have regarded it as of the 

 Co/eopto-« order ; but here their agreement ceases. Linne should seem 

 to have looked upon it as a species of the genus to which he has given its 

 name; but these, being timber insects, are not very likely to be swallowed 

 by cattle with their food. Geoffroy thinks it to be a Carabus or Cicindcla, 

 but with as little reason, since the species of these genera do not feed 

 amongst the herbage; and though they are sometimes found running 



has scarcely any mouth. It shuns also the vicinity of water, to which our cattle 

 generally fly as a refuge from it. It seems more jirobable that the Qistrus of 

 Greece was related to Brace's Zimb, represented in his tiguie with a long ]ir()boscis, 

 which makes its appearance in the neighbourhood of rivers, and belongs to the 

 Tabanida. For further information the reader should consult Mr. \V. S. Mac- 

 Leay's learned paper on the insect called Oistros and Asilus by the ancients. Linn. 

 Trans, xiv. 353. 



1 The larvaj of a species of (Estrus which infests the rhinoceros is figured in the 

 Trans. Ent. Soc. of London, vol. ii. pi. 22. fig. 1. 



2 Bruce's Travels, 8vo. ii. 315. 



3 Heb. 2'\'2t bv^' literally "Lord-Fly." See 2 Kings, i. 2.; and Bochart, 

 Ilierozoic. ps ii, 1. 4. c. 9. p. 490. 



* Bici-7i-Cow or Ox, from jSoi/j, bos, and 7rpr,9a), iuflammo. M. Latreille translates if; 

 Crive-bceuf, but improperly. 



G 2' 



