hi) the Ancient Greeks, and Asilus bi/ the Romans. 4.5 



rally understood so to signify in the following punning lines 



of Shakespeare : 



•' Cleopatra, 

 The breeze upon her, like a cow in June, 

 Hoists sail and flies." 



Now Mouffet, who, both as an entomological observer and 

 as a contemporary of Shakespeare, was likely to know the in- 

 sect then named 'brize, says expressly that the breeze, clegg, 

 clingez and taon, are all' the same insect, his description of 

 which proves it to be no other than the Ho'matopota pluvialiSy 

 for which the Clegg remains to this day the well-known and 

 appropriate provincial name — a name totally inapplicable to 

 the modern (Estrns. 



I have before said, that Aristotle makes it quite evident that 

 his ola-Tpo; and u.vw^ were very nearly of the same construc- 

 tion. So near indeed in affinity do they appear to have been, 

 that ^^i^schylus would seem to consider them as identical in 

 his Prometheus vinctus. From this poet we learn, that they 

 are 6^'jaToiJi.ot, and pierce the skin. lo says, 



Tlct^xx.o'TO'j felSs nipsi: ; 



In short, wherever the ju-uwr}/ is distinguished from the o1itt§o;, 

 I take the former to be either a Chrysops or Hcvmatopota* , or 

 some insect near to them, and the latter to be some species of 

 the modern genus JaiawM^, probably the Tabumis bovinusUmn. 

 or dun-fly, whose power of agitating cattle I have myself had 

 occasion 'to witness. This last insect certainly appears to be 

 the Asilus and CEstrus of Virgil. That this poet's insect can- 

 not be identical with any modern (Estrus is clear from his de- 

 scribing it to be in great plenty, and to be " acerba sonans." 

 Now the (Estms bovis is very rare every where ; and, accord- 

 ing to Mr. B. Clark, makes no noise. The (Estrus equi is 

 also silent in flying, as I have repeatedly myself observed. So 

 that neither of these insects can be that which is celebrated by 

 Virgil, whose description of the ability of the ancient oTo-t^oj 

 to make a i)articular kind of humming noise is corroborated 

 by the Scholiast before mentioned as well as by ^lian. 



' Messrs. Kirby and Spence in their Introduction to Entomo- 

 logy think that'the ancient Myops was some species of La- 

 treille's genus Tabanus, and that the (Estnis oi' the Greeks may 

 either have been a Fangonia or a Nemestrina. What we 



• One circumstance which is mentioned by yElian respecting the Mi/(yi>s, 

 namely, that it makes a louder hum than the ( Estrus, is perhaps against its 

 identity with the modern genus Hamatopola. 



■' know, 



