SAMOUELLF/S 



The Tabani are exceedingly annoying to horses, 

 during the summer months, by settling on various 

 parts of the body where they wound and suck the 

 blood: but in North America, according to the ac 

 count of Bartrara, they arc all in a gore of blood 

 from innumerable wounds made by the knives and 

 lancets of the various Tabani, which assail him as he 

 goes and allow him no respite. Vast clouds of dif- 

 ferent species — so abundant as to obscure every 

 distant object, and so severe is their bite as to merit 

 the appellation of burning Hies — cover and torment 

 the horses to such a degree as to excite compassion, 

 even in the hearts of the packhorse-men. Some of 

 them are nearly as big as bumblebees; and, when 

 they pierce the skin and veins of the unhappy beast, 

 make so large an orifice, that, besides what they 

 suck, the blood flows down its neck, sides and 

 shoulders in large drops like tears : Mr. Kirby ob- 

 serves, " that once travelling through Cambridge- 

 shire, with a brother entomologist, in a gig, our 

 horse was in the condition here described from the 

 attack of Tabanus rusticus, L." 



