DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. Ill 



our legs ; and, if we drive it away ever so often, returning 

 again and again to the charge. In Canada they are in- 

 finitely worse. "I have sat down to write," says Lambert, 

 (who though he calls it the house-fly is evidently speak- 

 ing of the Stomoxys,) " and have been obliged to throw 

 away my pea in consequence of their irritating bite, which 

 has obliged me every moment to raise my hand to my 

 eyes, nose, mouth, and ears in constant succession. 

 When I could no longer write, I began to read, and 

 was always obliged to keep one hand constantly on the 

 move towards my head. Sometimes in the course of a 

 few minutes I would take half a dozen of my tormentors 

 from my lips, between which I caught them just as they 

 perched 1 ." 



The swallow-fly (Crater ina Hirundinis b }, whose na- 

 tural food is the bird after which it is named, has been 

 known to make its repast on the human species. One 

 found its way into a bed of the Rev. R. Sheppard, where 

 it first, for several nights, sorely annoyed a friend of his, 

 and afterwards himself, without their suspecting the cul- 

 prit. After a close search, however, it was discovered 

 in the form of this fly, which, forsaking the nest of the 

 swallow, had by some chance taken its station between 

 the sheets, and thus glutted itself with the blood of man. 

 In travelling between Edam and Purmerend in North 

 Holland (July 21, 1815), in an open vehicle, I was much 

 teased by another bird-fly ( Ornitliomyia avicularia) (two 

 individuals of which I caught) alighting upon my head, 

 and inserting its rostrum into my flesh. Mr. Sheppard 

 remarks, as a reason for this dereliction of their appro- 

 priate food, that no sooner does life depart from the bird 



8 Travels, &c. i, 126. b See Curtis' Brit. Ent. t. 122. 



