THE KOMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



nor does the buzz produce the terror which that 

 of the zimb does. It is not till after several days 

 that the poison begins to manifest its effect : then 

 the eyes and nose discharge freely, the animal 

 swells, and becomes gradually emaciated, till at 

 length violent purging supervenes, and the animal 

 perishes, the whole blood and flesh being unnatu- 

 rally altered in condition.* 



Nor is Europe wholly free from such plagues. 

 There is, in Servia and the Banat, a minute fly,t 

 from whose destructive assaults on the cattle the 

 inhabitants have suffered immense losses. A trav- 

 eller, arriving at Golubacs, on the Danube, thus 

 speaks of it : — 



"Near this place we found a range of caverns, 

 famous for producing the poisonous fly, too well 

 known in Servia and Hungary under the name of 

 the Golubacser fly. These singular and venomous 

 insects, somewhat resembling musquitoes, gener- 

 ally make their appearance during the first great 

 heat of the summer, in such numbers as to appear 

 like vast volumes of smoke. Their attacks are 

 always directed against every description of 

 quadruped, and so potent is the poison they com- 

 municate, that even an ox is unable to withstand 

 its influence, for he always expires in less than 

 two hours. This results, not so much from the 

 virulence of the poison, as that every vulnerable 

 part is simultaneously covered with these most 

 destructive insects; when the wretched animals, 

 frenzied with pain, rush wild through the fields till 

 f/eath puts a period to their sufferings, or they 

 accelerate dissolution by plunging headlong into 

 the rivers. "| 



* Livingstone's " Travels," p. 80, et seq. 

 + Simulium Columbaschense, K611. 

 % Spence's "Travels in Circassia," i. p. 59. 

 110 



