24 Mr. W. S. MacLeay on the CEstrus of Mr. B. Clark. 
person having ever disputed this; but the contrary assertion is here to my 
mind most valiantly combated, upon the principle, I suppose, that the 
truth cannot be too often told. 
Sixth Discovery.—Mr. Clark had in his first paper stated that the 
(Estr. bovis, according to his own experience, makes no noise; but not- 
withstanding one might have thought that his “ practical pursuits on 
‘* heaths” entitled him to decide this weighty matter, it appears that a 
farm-yard friend of his has still more ‘ practical pursuits,” for he by 
standing among dung once heard some noise, and Mr. Clark accordingly 
discovers the truth and abandons his own experience. Hence we learn, 
on Mr. Clark’s own authority, that his friend in the farm-yard is still a 
better judge of poetic description than himself. Virgil’s words “ asper, 
“© acerba sonans”’ are certainly rather difficult to surmount if the insect 
be a silent one. 
Seventh Discovery.—Mr. Clark has just discovered that “ Gstrus 
“< bovis has no aculeus or weapon of infliction in the abdomen.’’ Very 
new and ingenious indeed! He appears to have formerly thought it 
hymenopterous. But as of all Diptera it is the least provided witha 
sting in the mouth, some people will perhaps fancy that Mr. Clark is here 
arguing against himself, since if he be right, and the @strus have no 
sting; and if the (Zstrus of the ancients be described by the poets as 
oévsopoc and be said by the philosophers éyeuv cevrpov ioxupdy jornpévov 
rov séparoc, why then the innocent Gistrus of Mr. Clark cannot be their 
insect. 
However, the cream of consistency is to come. In p. 404, Mr. Clark 
comes to the conclusion that the fly of Aristotle, Elian, and Pliny, 
“© may have been a Tabanus or an Asilus, a Conops, or a Culex, or any 
‘ other with spotted wings;”’* and in p. 409 he arrives without any new 
argument, but with equal confidence, at the diametrically opposite con- 
clusion, “ that the G¥strus of the ancients could have been no Tabanus.”’ 
as to the name from the Saxons; the Germans still confounding the Bremse 
and the Breme. But in the time of Mouffet the Brize was the Hematopota 
pluvialis, and the Burrell-flye or Whame was the @strus equi. 
* How precise and scientific! particularly when not one of the ancients 
makes mention of spotted wings. 
