THE GAD-FLY. 225 



During long and cold winter nights more especially during 

 great snow-storms, when the Lapp cannot see after the herd 

 for a day or two together the wolf is most destructive. If 

 he then visit the herd he makes awful work of it, and has 

 been known to slaughter thirty to forty deer in the course of 

 a single night. When thus attacked by the beast, the herd 

 at times makes for the tent of the owner, for shelter and 

 protection. 



In the summer time the rein-deer is greatly persecuted 

 by the gad-fly (Oestrus Tarandi, Linn. ; Snupok, in 

 Lappish), which not only perforates the hide of the poor 

 animal, but lays its eggs in the wound it has made, where 

 they are afterwards hatched. The larvae called Kurbma, 

 in Lappish are large, of an ugly appearance, and in 

 the spring found in very great numbers along the whole 

 length of the back, so that at that season the hide looks like a 

 sieve, and as a consequence is of little or no value. The gad- 

 fly is particularly dreaded by the rein-deer ; and should the 

 Laplander remain in the forest, he not unfrequently loses a 

 large portion of the herd, as he then finds it extremely diffi- 

 cult to keep the deer from wandering, instinct seeming to 

 point out to them the mountains as their refuge from the 

 enemy. Even near to the sea-coast to which the Lapps 

 often drive the herds in the summer time the gad-fly, if 

 there be wood thereabouts, is sure to be found. 



Another species of insects (Oestrus nasalis, Linn. ; in Lap- 

 pish Pitoh) is, if possible, a still greater enemy to the rein-deer 

 than even the gad-fly. It penetrates their nostrils, where it 

 deposits its eggs. Inhaled by the deer, these eggs lodge in 

 the palate, and parts adjacent, where they fructify during the, 

 following winter, and become pretty large worms, which lie 



VOL. II. Q 



