24 Mr. W. S. MacLeay on the CEstrm of Mr. B. Clark. 



person having ever disputed this ; but the contrary assertion is here to my 

 mind most vahantly combated, upon the principle, I suppose, that the 

 truth cannot be too often told. 



Sixth Discovery. — Mr. Clark had in his first paper stated that the 

 Q^str. hovis, according to his own experience, makes no noise; but not- 

 withstanding one might have thought that his " practical pursuits on 

 *' heaths" entitled him to decide this weighty matter, it appears that a 

 farm-yard friend of his has still more " practical pursuits," for he by 

 standing among dung once heard some noise, and Mr. Clark accordingly 

 discovers the truth and abandons his own experience. Hence we learn, 

 on Mr. Clark's own authority, that his friend in the farm-yard is still a 

 better judge of poetic description than himself. Virgil's words " asper, 

 " acerba sonans" are certainly rather difficult to surmount if the insect 

 be a silent one. 



Seventh Discovery. — Mr. Clark has just discovered that " (Estrus 

 " bovis has no aculeus or weapon of infliction in the abdomen." Very 

 new and ingenious indeed ! He appears to have formerly thought it 

 hymenopterous. But as of all Diptera it is the least provided with a 

 sting in the mouth, some people will perhaps fancy that Mr. Clark is here 

 arguing against himself, since if he be right, and the (Estrus have no 

 sting; and if the (Estrus of the ancients be described by the poets as 

 o^vTOfioe and be said by the philosophers exeiy Kevrpoy lcr-)(yp6v fjpTrjfiiroy 

 Tov TOfiaToq, why then the innocent (Estrus of Mr. Clark cannot be their 

 insect. 



However, the cream of consistency is to come. In p. 404, Mr. Clark 

 comes to the conclusion that the fly of Aristotle, JElian, and Pliny, 

 " may have been a Tabanus or an Asilus, a Conops, or a Culex, or any 

 " other with spotted wings;"* and in p. 409 he arrives without any new 

 argument, but with equal confidence, at the diametrically opposite con- 

 clusion, " that the (Estrus of the ancients could have been no Tabanus.''* 



as to the name from the Saxons; the Germans still confounding the Bremse 

 and the Breme. But in the time of MoufFet the Brize was the Hcematopota 

 pluvialis, and the Burrell-flye or Whame was the (Estrus equi. 



* How precise and scientific! particularly when not one of the ancients 

 makes mention of spotted wings. 



