INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 153 



Heither of these authors may be nght ; for, from the 

 mischief it does to cattle in particular distriets, it must 

 be furnished with the means of penetrating the skin of 

 certain parts of the animal ; (Latreille relates that he 

 suffered great pain from the bite of this insect himself;) 

 yet it is evident from the accounts of Linne and Ulloa 

 before quoted, that the Simulium does not bite, but is 

 only troublesome on account of the itching- it occasions. 

 It does not appear, indeed, from Latreille's characters, 

 to have oral instruments proper for piercing. Similar 

 reasons prove that it can scarcely be a Rhagio — but 

 to whatever genus it may belong, it is certainly a most 

 destructive little creature. In Servia and the Bannat 

 it attacks the cattle in infinite numbers, penetrates, ac- 

 cording to Fabricius, their generative organs, but ac- 

 cording to other accounts their nose and ears, and by 

 its poisonous bite destroys them in the short space of 

 four or five hours. 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 cattle perishing from its attacks, and 

 in Versetz, five hundred. It appears towards the latter 

 end of April or beginning of May in such indescribable 

 swarms as to resemble clouds, proceeding as some think 

 from the region of Mehadia, but according to others 

 from Turkey. Its approach is the signal for universal 

 alarm. The cattle fly from their pastures; and the 

 herdsman hastens to shut up his cows in the house, or, 

 when at a distance from home, to kindle fires, the 

 smoke of which is found to drive off this terrible as- 

 sailant. Of this the cattle are sensible, and as soon as 



