428 Insect Architecture. 



Virgil gives a correct and lively picture of it in his Georgics,* 

 of which the following is a translation, a little varied from 

 Trapp : 



Hound Mount Alburnus, green with shady oaks, 



And in the groves of Silarus, there flies 



An insect pest (named (Estrus by the Greeks, 



By us Asilus) : fierce with jarring hum 



It drives, pursuing, the affrighted herd 



From glade to glade ; the air, the woods, the banks 



Of the dried river echo their loud bellowing. 



Had we not other instances to adduce, of similar terror 

 caused among sheep, deer, and horses, by insects of the same 

 genus, which are ascertained not to penetrate the skin, we 

 should not have hesitated to conclude that Vallisnieri and 

 Reaumur are right, and Mr. Bracey Clark wrong. In the 

 strictly similar instance of Reindeer-fly ( (Estrus tarandi, 

 LINN.), we have the high authority of Linnaeus for the fact, 

 that it lays its eggs upon the skin. 



" I remarked," he says, " with astonishment how greatly 

 the reindeer are incommoded in hot weather, insomuch that 

 they cannot stand still a minute, no not a moment, without 

 changing their posture, starting, puffing and blowing con- 

 tinually, and all on account of a little fly. Even though 

 amongst a herd of perhaps five hundred reindeer, there were 

 not above ten of those flies, every one of the herd trembled 

 and kept pushing its neighbour about. The fly, meanwhile, 

 was trying every means to get at them ; but it no sooner 

 touched any part of their bodies, than they made an im- 

 mediate effort to shake it off. I caught one of these insects 

 as it was flying along with its tail protruded, which had at 

 its extremity a small linear orifice perfectly white. The tail 

 itself consisted of four or five tubular joints, slipping into 



* Est lucos Silari circa ilicibusque virentem 

 Plurimus Alburnum volitans, cui nomen asilo 

 Komanum est, (Estrum Graii vertere vocantes, 

 Asper, acerba sonans ; quo tota exterrita silvis 

 Diti'ugiunt armenta ; furit mugitibus sether 

 Concussus, sylvaeque et sicci ripa Tanagri. 



Georg. lib. iii. 146. 



