424 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



speaking, the settler in the back-woods prefers the precarious 

 but luscious supply afforded by those swarms which have 

 deserted man, and taken up their abode in fissures of rocks or 

 hollows of trees, to the more regular but less abundant supply 

 from hives of his own. 



Horse - biting flies seem, in the district through which 

 our author travelled, to have been excessively numerous and 

 annoying. We unhesitatingly pronounce these dreadful scourges 

 to belong to the natural order Tabanites. A strange con- 

 fusion appears to have existed on this subject, solely owing, in 

 our opinion, to a very useless desire to make the terms used by 

 Virgil, who was a poet and an observer of nature, but no 

 entomologist, agree with those of Linnaeus, who was an observer 

 and an entomologist, but no poet. Our friend, Bracy 

 Clark, and the learned author of the Horae Entomologicag, 

 amused the entomological public with a warm and learned 

 controversy on the subject. The matter is this — there are three 

 distinct orders of flies, whose names and histories have been 

 mingled and confused. 



Tabanites, which suck the blood of horses and cattle. 



Asilites, which prey solely on insects. 



CEstrites, which feed not at all in the perfect state, but 

 whose larvae feed in the stomachs, under the skins, or in the 

 frontal sinuses of horses and cattle. 



Now, Virgil distinctly states that the same animal was called by 

 the name ofAsilus by the Romans, and CEstrus hy the Greeks ; 

 thus, of course, making these terms no more than synonyms ; 

 but Linna?us, the scientific nomenclator, was no party to this. 

 We beg pardon, we are so apt to wander — where were we ? 

 " These biting flies are of several species, and their numbers 

 incredible. We travelled, almost from sun-rise to sun-set, 

 amidst a flying host of these persecuting spirits, who formed a 

 vast cloud around our caravan so thick as to obscure every 

 distant object ; but our van always bore the brunt of the conflict ; 

 the heads, necks, and shoulders of the leading horses were 

 continually in a gore of blood ; some of the flies were nearly 

 as large as humble bees. They are armed with a strong, 

 sharp beak or proboscis, shaped like a lancet, and sheathed in 

 thin flexible valves; with this beak they instantly pierce the 

 veins of the creatures, making a large orifice, from whence the 

 blood springs in large drops, rolling down as tears, causing a 



