154 IXDIRECT.INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



attacked run towards the smoke, and are generally pre- 

 served by it^. 



Tabani in this country do not seem to annoy our 

 oxen so much as they do our horses : perhaps for this 

 immunity they maybe indebted to the thickness of their 

 hides ; but in some parts of Africa insects of this tribe 

 do incredible mischief. What would you think, should 

 you be told that one species of fly drives both inhabi- 

 tants and th^ir cattle from a whole district ? Yet the 

 terrible Tsalf-sa/j/a or Zimh of Bruce (and the world 

 seems now disposed to give more credit to the accounts 

 of that traveller) has power to produce such an effect. 

 This fly, which is a native of Abyssinia, both from its 

 habits and the figure, appears to belong to Latreille'ts 

 genus Pangonia, taken from Tabanus, L., and perhaps 

 is congenerous with the CEstrus of the Greeks'*. 



' Fabr, Enl. Syst. Em. iv. 276. 22. Latr. Hist. Nat. &c. xiv. 283. 

 Leipz. Zeii. Jul. 5, 1813, quoted in Gerinar's Mag. dcr Ent. ii. 185. 



'' It is by no means cloar (hat the QSstms of modern entomologists is 

 synonymous with the insects which the Greeks distinguish by that name. 

 Aristotle not only describes these as blood-suckers {Hisl. Animal. 1. ^iii. 

 c. 11.) but also as furnished with a strong proboscis (1. 4. c. 7.). lie ob- 

 serves likewise that they are produced from an animal inhabiting the 

 waters, in the vicinity of which they most abound (1. viii. c. 7.). And 

 jElian (Hist. 1. vi. c.38.) gives nearly the same account. Comparing the 

 CEslrus with the Myops (synonymous perhaps with Tabanus, Latr., ex- 

 cept that Aristotle affirms that its larvaj live in wood, 1. v. c. 19.) he 

 says, the CEstrus for a fly is one of the largest ; it has a stiff and large 

 sting, (meaning a proboscis,) and emits a certain humming and harsh 

 sound — but the Myops is like the Cynomyia — it hums more loudly than 

 the CEstrus, though it has a smaller sting. 



These characters and circumstances do not at all agree with the mo- 

 dern QJstrus, w hich, so far from being a blood-sucker furnished with a 

 strong proboscis, has scarcely any mouth. It shuns also the vicinity of 



