INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 117 



which is found to drive off this terrible assailant. Of this the cattle are 

 sensible, and as soon as attacked run towards the smoke, and are generally 

 preserved by it.^ 



Tabani in this country do not seem to annoy our oxen so much as they 

 do our horses : perhaps for this immunity they may be indebted to the 

 thickness of their hides ; but Virgil's beautiful description of the annoy- 

 ance shows that the Grecian (Estrus, called by the Romans Asilus, evi- 

 dently is one of the Tabanidee. As the passage has not been very cor- 

 rectly translated, I shall turn poet on the occasion, and attempt to give it 

 you in a new dress. 



Through waving groves where Selo's torrent flows, 

 And where, Alborno, thy green Ilex grows, 

 Myriads of insects flutter in the gloom, 

 ((Estrus in Greece, Asilus named at Rome,) 

 Fierce and of cruel hum. By the dire sound, 

 Driven from the woods and shady glens around, 

 The universal herds in terror fly ; 

 Their lowings shake the woods and shake the sky, 

 And Negro's arid shore 



In some parts of Africa also insects of this tribe do incredible mischief. 

 What would you think, should you be told that one species of fly drives 

 both inhabitants and their cattle from a whole district ? Yet the terrible 

 Tsaltsnlya or Zimb of Bruce (and the world seems now disposed to give 

 more credit to the accounts of that traveler) has power to produce such 

 an effect. This fly, which is a native of Abyssinia, both from its habits 

 and the figure, appears to belong to the Tabanida, and perhaps is conge- 

 nerous with the (Estrus of the Greeks.^ 



1 Fabr. Ent. Si/st- Em. iv. 276. 22. Latr. Hist. Nat. ifcc. xiv. 283. Leipz. Zeit. 

 July 5, 1813, quoted in Germar's Mag. der Ent. ii. 185. In Kollar's Treatise on Insects in- 

 jurious to Gardeners. Foresters, and Farmers, (Lond. 1840), a valuable work, for a trans- 

 lation of which from the German into English we are indebted to the Misses Loudon, it is 

 stated (p. 70.) that Dr. Schonbauer, late Professor of Natural History at Pesth, has ascer- 

 tained that the swarms of this fly, which he calls Simulia Columbaschensis, instead of pro- 

 ceeding, as the Wallachians universally believe, from the jaws of the dragon killed by St. 

 George, and buried in certain caves in the limestone mountains near Columbaez in Servia, 

 out of the mouths of which they issue like smoke, in fact are bred in the extensive swamps 

 in this district, passing all their states of egg, larva, and nymph in water. Vast swarms 

 appeared in 1830 in a large tract of Austria, Hungary, and Moravia, overflowed by the 

 river Marsch, and hundreds of horses, cows, and swine perished from their bite. Men are 

 equally attacked by this scourge, but can more easily defend themselves, and there are not 

 wanting solitary examples of little children dying from the excessive inflammation conse- 

 quent on their numerous punctures. 



* It is by no means clear that the CEsirus of modern entomologists is synonymous with 

 the insects which the Greeks distinguish by that name. Aristotle not only describes these 

 as blood-suckers {Hist. Animal. 1. viii. c. 11.) but also as furnished with a strong proboscis 

 (1. iv. c. 7.). He observes likewise that they are produced from an animal inhabiting the 

 waters, in the vicinity of which they most abound (1. viii. c. 7.). And ^lian {Hist. 1. vi. 

 c. 38.) gives nearly the same account. Comparing the (Estrus with the Myops (synony- 

 mous perhaps with Tabanus Latr., except that Aristotle affirms that its larvae live in wood, 

 1. V. c. 19.), he says, the (Estrus for a fly is one of the largest; it has a stifi" and large 

 sting (meaning a proboscis,) and emits a certain humming and harsh sound — but the 

 Myops is like the Cynomyia — it hums more loudly than the (Estrus, though it has a smaller 

 sting. 



These characters and circumstances do not at all agree with the modern (Estrus, which, 

 so far from being a blood-sucker furnished with a strong proboscis, has scarcely any mouth. 

 It shuns also the vicinity of water, to which our cattle generally fly as a refuge from it. 

 It seems more probable that the CEstrus of Greece was related to Bruce's Zimb, represented 

 in his figure with a long proboscis, which makes its appearance in the neighborhood of 

 rivers, and belongs to the Tabanida. For further information the reader should consult 

 Mr. W. S. MacLeay's learned paper on the insect called Oistros and Asilus by the ancients. 

 Linn. Trans, xiv. 353. 



