123 



SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF 



the upper edge. The female (Fig. 96), is of a lighter color than the 

 male, marked with purplish-brown as in the figure, the transverse 

 bands being quite distinctly defined with very dark-brown. The 

 under side is very much as in the male. 



A few of the butterilies,in all probability, manage to live through 

 the winter, and are thus enabled to perpetuate the race, by deposit- 

 ing their eggs, the following summer, on the leaves and stems of the 

 (ioat-weed, which is the only plant upon which the insect is yet 

 known to subsist. 



THE BLACK BREEZE-FLY- Tabanus atratus, Fabr. 



(Diptera, Tabanidso.) 



There is a family of large 

 Two-winged Flies, com- 

 monly called Breeze-flies in 

 England, but more com- 

 ~^*x monly known as Ilorse- 

 p^ flies in this country, the in- 

 sects belonging to which 

 are, in the perfect state, 

 great nuisances, though 

 there is every reason to be- 

 lieve that as larvae they are 

 beneficial to tne husband- 

 man, by devouring many 

 noxious underground vege- 

 table-feeding larva 1 . 

 This family comprises some of the very largest flies, and they are 

 all noted for the tormenting powers which the female has of piercing 

 the skin and sucking the blood of different quadrupeds and even of 

 man. They are widely distributed, and species occur in all parts of 

 the. world, torturing alike the huge elephant and fierce lion of the 

 tropics, and the peaceful reindeer of the arctic region. It is during 

 the hottest summer months that they "do most abound, 1 ' and they 

 frequent both our timbered and prairie regions. One of the most 

 common species in the West is the so-called "Green-head Fly" 

 ( Tabanus lineola, Fabr.) and every farmer who has to work on the 

 prairies, especially during the hay-making season, knows how blood- 

 thirsty it is, and how absolutely necessary it is to cover the horses at 

 this season of the year, in order that they may be able to work at all. 

 Two other species of nearly the same size (T. costalis, Wied. and T. 

 amctus, Fabr.) are common with us, and I have found the striped 



