202 IDENTITY WITH THE 0I6TR0S. 



nag of Petruchio is, that " he is so begnawn with 

 the bots." 



Without entering on the peculiar habits of the 

 sheep-fly (CE. ovis), I shall now conclude this brief 

 notice of some of our British CEstri, whose obscure 

 and singular habitations are the stomach and intes- 

 tines of the horse, the frontal and maxillary sinuses 

 of sheep, and beneath the skin of the backs of horned 

 cattle."* They form, however, a striking example 

 of the influence exerted by insects over the health 

 and comfort of our domestic quadrupeds. 



To you, it may, perhaps, be interesting to examine 

 what has been said of them by classical WTiters, and 

 to enter into the question, whether or not the Oistros 

 of the ancients was, or was not, the insect to which 

 the same name was applied by Linnaeus. If so, I 

 refer you to two papers in the " Transactions of the 

 Linnaean Society," advocating conflicting opinions 

 on this subject, the negative being contended for 

 by Mr. W. S. Macleay (vol. xiv. p. 353), and the 

 affirmative maintained by Mr. Bracey Clarke (vol. 

 XV. p. 402). One thing, however, is obvious, — that 

 the inquiry proposed has not been deemed unin- 

 teresting by that learned body, which has thus de- 

 voted many pages of its valuable "Transactions," to 



* Mr. B. Clarke, Linn. Trans, vol.iii. p. 291. 



