26 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



suck the blood of larger animals ; though we do not 

 recollect that what we refer to has been noticed by 

 naturalists. Our attention was directed to the cir- 

 cumstance many years ago in Scotland, where the 

 midge {Culicoides punctata., Latr.), a very small 

 kind of gnat, was so very troublesome to a party of 

 hay-makers, that it was with difficulty they could 

 continue their work ; yet, notwithstanding the gene- 

 ral attack made by the insects wherever they could 

 find a spot of uncovered skin, one individual among 

 the hay-makers was never touched, while the skin of 

 his companions was covered with bites as if scourged 

 with nettles. It was evident, therefore, that the 

 midges, though otherwise apparently indiscriminate 

 in their attacks, did not relish the blood of this in- 

 dividual, from some unknown peculiarity of constitu- 

 tion or of disease*. The midge is not so trouble- 

 some in the neio'hbourhood of London as the ffnat. 

 Derham says, " these gnats are greedy bloodsuckers, 

 and very troublesome where numerous, as they are 

 in some places near the Thames, particularly in the 

 breach waters that have lately fallen near us in the 

 parish of Dagenham, where I found them so vexa- 

 tious that I was glad to get out of these marshes : 

 yea, I have seen horses so stung with them, that they 

 have had drops of blood all over their bodies where 

 they were wounded by them. Among us in Essex 

 they are called Nidiois-^.^' 



A similar selection of individuals even of the same 

 species is very remarkable in the ox-breeze fly {Hypo- 

 derma Bovis, Latr.), which always prefers young 

 cattle of two or three years old, and avoids old cattle 

 in depositing its eggs, as if aware that her progeny 

 would find it harder to penetrate an old, tough hide, 



* J.R. 



t Physico-Theology, Book iv. c. 11, No. u. See also Mouffet, 

 Theatr. Insect., xiii. 82. 



