160 INDIRECT INJTTRIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



Of our domestic animals the least infested by insects, 

 I mean as to the number of species that attack it, is the 

 swine. With the exception of its louse, which seems to 

 annoy it principally by exciting a violent itching, it is 

 exposed to scarcely any other plague of this class, un- 

 less we may suppose that it is the biting of flies, which 

 in hot weather drives it to " its wallowing in the mire." 



Under this head we may include the deer tribe, for, 

 though often wild, those kept in parks may strictly be 

 deemed domestic; and the rein-deer is quite as much 

 so to the Laplander, as our oxen and kine are to us. 

 We learn from Reaumur that the fallow-deer is sub- 

 ject to the attack of two species of gad-fly : one, which, 

 like that of the ox, deposits its eggs in an orifice it 

 makes in the skin of the animal, and so produces tu- 

 mours; and another in imitation of that of the sheep, 

 ovipositingin such a manner that its larvffi when hatch- 

 ed can make their way into the head, where they take 

 their station in a cavity near the pharynx. He relates 

 a curious notion of the hunters with respect to these 

 two species. Conceiving" them both to be the same, 

 they imagine that they mine for themselves a painful 

 path under the skin to the root of the horns ; w hich is 

 their common rendezvous from all parts of the body ; 

 where by uniting their labours and gnawing iridefati- 

 gably, they occasion the annual casting of these orna- 

 mental as well as powerful arms. This fable, impro- 

 bable and ridiculous as it is, has had the sanction of 

 grave authorities'*. — The CEstri last mentioned inhabit, 

 in considerable numbers, two fleshy bags as big as a 

 hen's Q^^^ and of a similar shape, near the root of the 

 tongue. Reaumur took between sixty and seventy bots 



* Rcaiun. v. 69. Dktionnaire dc Tnvoiu; aiihle Ccrf. 



