22 Mr. W.S. MacLeay on the Hstrus of Mr. B. Clark. 
* Tabani, Conopses,* or Culices, were the object of poetic description.’’ 
M. Latreille, I dare say, has witnessed these practical effects, that is, a 
Cow dancing a hornpipe witha Gadfly, and I am sure, so have I; but no 
matter, I shall only hint, that as the “ practical pursuits” of Aristotle and 
other ancients did not much lead them among cattle on the heaths, this 
may have probably been also the cause of their being so shamefully igno- 
rant of their own meaning. 
Mr. Clark talks of his “ curious discoveries’”’ on this singular tribe of 
insects. Now, the reason why I committed the heinous fault of over- 
looking this gentleman in my paper, was, that I conceived these “ disco- 
veries,’”” when correct, to have been already discovered by others, and 
found these ‘ discoveries,”” when his own, to be almost always in direct 
opposition to the fact. In the paper before us, there are, however, some 
truly curious and original discoveries, and I shall state them at length, in 
order that Mr. Clark may no longer complain of my overlooking him.+ 
First Discovery.—Mr. Clark finds that there is a scoundrelly set of 
* As to “ Conopses,” I never heard of their existence before, and certainly 
never mentioned the names in my paper either of these new animals, or of 
Culices, as being the Gstri of the ancients. I ought to plead guilty, however, 
to the accusation that I have been led to suppose that a Culex has been the 
object of poetic description. If Mr. Clark be not too old to go toschool, he 
will find so too. 
+ By far the most accurate and laborious work that has yet appeared on the 
genus Csirus, is that of Johannes Leonardus Fischer, published at Leipsic, in 
1787. This gentleman gives a Synopsis Specierum, and a correct and detailed 
account of the natural history and anatomy of @str. ovis, Gistr. bovis, and their 
respective larve. And yet this Mr. Bracy Clark, who talks of his curious 
discoveries, published many years afterwards a work on Gstrus, wherein he 
describes two or three new species with such abominable names as veterinus 
and salutiferus ; pirates from Monuffet and Reaumur, the history of (strus equi ; 
describes the pupa of @strus for its larva, which it appears that he does not 
even yet know; gives an anatomy of both pupa and perfect insect that would 
equally answer for that of a Whale; and finally makes a new genus, of which 
to this day he does not know the true character, and names it in direct defiance 
of every Linnean rule. Such is Mr. Clark’s paper on the Bots of Horses, and 
yet it is indisputably the best paper that the old Linnean School ever published 
on Zoology in England. IT allude not of course to Mr. Kirby’s papers, because 
he belongs to an infinitely superior class of Naturalists. 
