NOVEMBER 283 



The intense labour necessary to the study and classifi- 

 cation of such minute and fragile creatures has not 

 deterred men of science from undertaking both. It is 

 the privilege of mere smatterers like myself to gratify 

 curiosity by the easy process of reading what they have 

 put on record ; but this parasite habit ought never to 

 weaken our admiration for those resolute minds who 

 apply themselves humbly to working out the secrets of 

 nature in the way prescribed so long ago as the only one 

 to attain knowledge ' Line upon line, line upon line ; 

 here a little, and there a little.' It is no matter for 

 wonder that some confusion still reigns in understanding 

 the genus Ceratopogon ; but the members thereof which 

 afflict men and women seem to belong mainly to five out 

 of the forty-nine recognised British species namely, 

 Ceratopogon bipunctatus, with a white dot on each of the 

 dusky wings ; C. pulicaris, with white wings dotted with 

 brown ; C. nitidus, with a black and shiny body and pale 

 veins on the wings; C. lineatus, a gray-headed rascal 

 with a yellowish tinge on the wings, at least of the female ; 

 and C. femoratus, with shiny black body and milky wings 

 tinged with brown. Needless to say, that none of these 

 distinctions can be noted without the aid of a pocket lens, 

 such as no one who cares for nature will ever be without. 

 Possessed of a good lens, the sufferer may derive what 

 satisfaction is to be had from the knowledge that his 

 epidermis is being tortured by the proboscis of Cerato- 

 pogon bipunctatibs, which breeds under the decaying bark 

 of trees ; of C. lineatus, which breeds in the water ; or of 

 C. lateralis, which breeds in dung. 



