CULICID^ — GNATS, 283 



fiercely attacked by these insects as to be driven baclv ; or 

 tliat the inhabitants of various cities, as Mouffet has col- 

 lected from different authors,^ should, by an extraordinary 

 multiplication of this plague, have been compelled to desert 

 them. Also the latter part of the following story, related 

 by Theodoret, seems entitled to belief: When Sapor, King 

 of Persia, says this historian, was besieging the Roman 

 City of Nisibis in the year 360, James, Bishop of that city, 

 ascended one of the towers, and " prayed that Flies and 

 Gnats might be sent against the Persian hosts, that so they 

 might learn from these small insects the great power of 

 Him who protected the Romans." Scarcely had the 

 Bishop concluded his prayer, continues Theodoret, when 

 swarms of Flies and Gnats appeared like clouds, so that 

 the trunks of the elephants were filled with them, as also 

 were the ears and nostrils of the horses and of the other 

 beasts of burden; and that, not being able to get rid of 

 these insects, the elephants and horses threw their riders, 

 broke the ranks, left the army, and fled away with the ut- 

 most speed ; and this, he concludes, compelled the Persians 

 to raise the siege. ^ 



"As the Cossacks of the Black Sea are no agriculturists," 

 says Jaeger, " but derive their subsistence from their numer- 

 ous herds of horses, oxen, sheep, goats, and hogs, they suffer 

 immensely, at times, from the ravages of the mosquitoes. 

 Although they are fortunately not seen every year, these 

 blood-suckers may be considered a real Egyptian plague 

 among the herds of these Cossacks ; for they soon trans- 

 form the most delightful plains into a mournful, solitary 

 desert, killing all the beasts, and completely stripping the 

 fields of every animated creature. One thousand of these 

 insatiate tormentors enter the nostrils, ears, eyes, and mouth 

 of the cattle, who shortly after die in convulsions, or from 

 secondary inflammation, or from absolute suffocation. In 

 the small town of Elizabethpol alone, during the month 

 of June, thirty horses, forty foals, seventy oxen, ninety 

 calves, a hundred and fifty hogs, and four hundred sheep 

 were killed by these flies. "^ 



Ammianus Marcellinus, in his Roman History, treating 



1 Ins. Theatr., p 85. 



2 Theod. Eccles. Hist., B. ii. cli. xxx. 

 ^ N.A.Ins., p. 317. 



