236 NATURAL HISTORY. [cH. XVI. 



moir from which the preceding extract is taken, 

 Mr. Spence has pubhshed an account of a very sin- 

 gular and simple plan, adopted in some parts of Italy, 

 for excluding the housefly from apartments, of 

 which the windows are nevertheless allowed to be 

 wide open for the admission of air. 



If the boasted supremacy of man is thus set at 

 naught by these minute creatures, it is not to be 

 supposed that the beasts of the field should escape 

 unattacked. And we accordingly find that the order 

 of insects to which the gnat belongs, comprises also 

 the chief tormentors of the quadruped tribes. We 

 believe, however, that no instance has been yet 

 recorded of the attacks of the moschetoes upon 

 cattle, although several species of simulium are 

 stated to attack the horse and ox. Thus, the Culex 

 equinus, which *' infests horses in infinite multitudes, 

 running under their manes and attacking them with 

 great fierceness, being not easily driven off," is ev- 

 idently, from the description and figure of Linnaeus, 

 a simulium. 



But one of the worst of all animal tormentors is a 

 minute fly, to which Fabricius first gave the name 

 of Rhagio Columbaschensis. This terrible creature 

 is only a line or two long, and appears in immense 

 quantities in the spring and early summer months 

 in Sienna and the Bannat, attacking the cattle, pen- 

 etrating various parts, and by its poisonous bite de- 

 stroying them in the course of four or five hours. 

 It is also found in the southern parts of France, and 

 has been discovered in the environs of Paris. La- 

 treille states, that having once been bitten by one of 

 them, he had experienced excessive pain. Much 

 injury was sustained in 1813 from this insect, in the 

 palatinate of Arad in Hungary, and in the Bannat. 

 In Banlack not fewer than two hundred horned cat- 

 tle perished from its attacks, and in Vershetz five 

 hundred. It appears in such indescribable swarms 

 as to resemble clouds, proceeding, as some think, 



