66 Kansas Academy of Science. 



Having been raised on a farm several miles south of Winnfield, in 

 Winn parish, Mr. C. C. Moreland has recollected that about fifteen or 

 possibly twenty years ago the farmers who lived on low flat lands near 

 the creeks in that neighborhood commonly resorted to a method of 

 smudging for protection of horses and mules when being worked in fields. 

 The smoke produced by a smoldering piece of old quilt or some kind of 

 wadding hung from the neck of a draft animal served quite effectively 

 in preventing attacks by the gnats, since the animal in motion generally 

 kept its body enveloped by the smoke. Cattle also obtained relief from 

 the insects by going into the smoke arising from burning logs and brush 

 piles which were set afire for the purpose of creating the smudge. The 

 time of day when the gnats appeared most numerously was towards 

 evening, and they apparently came out of thickets bordering the streams. 

 Occurrences of the gnats always followed high running water in the 

 creeks during early springtime. 



While on a trip in Morehouse parish in 1893, Dr. W. H. Dalrymple, 

 the station veterinarian, learned that black flies were afflicting live stock 

 in the country along Bayou Bartholomew. He was afterwards in- 

 formed by a stockman that the principal trouble caused by the flies re- 

 sulted from their tendency to enter and clog the nostrils of animals, 

 rendering them scarcely able to breathe, and in fact occasionally suffo- 

 cating them. Similar accounts concerning appearances of the pest in 

 later years were furnished by the same party. Singularly, the insects 

 caused no serious molestation by biting. Although they flew into the 

 buggy in which Doctor Dalrymple rode, yet he was not bitten, and he has 

 never suffered a bite by a black fly. He suggested that some means of 

 protecting the nose of every exposed animal would be a simple matter in 

 effecting the exclusion of the gnats. For work animals, he proposed the 

 use of screen muzzles, and for grazing animals, the application of re- 

 pellent substances on the nose. 



Owing to his long service in the state, Doctor Dalrymple has had a 

 considerable amount of correspondence in regard to the past. However, 

 he has not kept any records of complaints received and can remember 

 nothing more recent than some reports which came from St. Landry 

 parish, dating back over a number of years. 



Many years ago, according to Maj. J. G. Lee, plagues of black flies 

 occurred almost regularly every spring throughout the alluvial lands 

 along the Ouachita river and its tributaries. The infested district mainly 

 included Union, Morehouse, Ouachita, Richland, Caldwell, Franklin and 

 Catahoula parishes. While Major Lee did not live in a place subject 

 to the greatest abundance of the pest, his home at the time being in 

 Farmerville, Union parish, yet he has averred that the insects spread 

 for long distances into hilly country, and, in fact, he has known of their 

 presence in the town of Calhoun. He has suffered from bites inflicted by 

 the gnats at times, but, as a result, he experienced only a sharp stinging 

 effect which soon passed away. 



Numerous reports of serious consequences due to the flies attacking 

 persons and live stock are considered by him to have come from very re- 

 liable sources. He has heard of cases in which deer sought refuge in 



