98 Psyche [June 
in that vicinity in 1884, and they were again quite troublesome 
in 1890. 
In the case of sendings from Wooster, Ohio, some years after 
these dates, a farmer complained of flies getting in the ears and 
nostrils of his horses while being worked in a particular field near 
a brook, originating from a spring, and running over a rocky bed. 
Specimens of the adults were submitted and determined as S. 
pecuarum Riley, but I find no record of this in the Bureau notes 
on Simulium. If I remember correctly in this Wooster, Ohio, 
case, the difficulty was eliminated by pouring crude petroleum 
into the spring, allowing it to be carried down stream by the run- 
ning water. 
Prior to the outbreak of the war, the levees of the Mississippi 
River were continuous through the alluvial country and kept in 
good repair. With the outbreak of the war, however, when sterner 
matters overshadowed everything else, the levees were neglected, 
and in many cases caved into the river. 
Soon after this time, as cavalry and artillery officers of both 
armies have since assured me, there were severe losses of both 
horses and mules in their respective commands. From this time 
onward to 1886, the buffalo gnat became such a scourge, killing 
in many cases every horse and mule on a plantation, that their 
appearance came to be greatly dreaded. 
It is the remembrance of those days when both domestic ani- 
mals and occasionally a human fell a prey to these flies, that re- 
mains to be refreshed in the minds of the people even to this day, 
whenever the levees give way and overflows occur during the spring 
time. There is, however, practically no danger whatever from a 
return of such disastrous outbreaks of buffalo gnats as formerly 
occurred. The gnats do not breed in the Mississippi River itself, 
and it will require more than one season’s overflow to enable them 
to increase in numbers sufficient to become a menace to domestic 
animals. 
The writer has been bitten by these gnats until his face and 
neck were so blotched as to render shaving impossible for weeks. 
Civil engineers working on the St. Francis River, during excessive 
abundance of buffalo gnats, suffered severely from their attacks. 
The gnats would make their way down their necks and under their 
clothing, and also down their rubber boots and collect there about 
