194 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Sept. 1, 1865. 



then raising them into the air and devouring them. 

 Many other insects also aid in the work of destruc- 

 tion, and assist in checking the undue preponder- 

 ance of ApJiides by maintaining the balance of power. 



It is the same with other insects. Smaller species 

 oiAnthomyia are also very destructive to vegetation; 

 but dung flies, in their perfect state, devour them 

 with greediness, seizing them with their fore-feet, 

 piercing their heads and sucking the juices. Who 

 shall determine the check which injurious insects 

 receive from Ichneumons and TacMna, and such 

 parasites ? 



In a paper published in the Proc^dings of the 

 Entomological Society of Philadelphia, Mr. Walsh 

 directs attention to the number of species of insects 

 which haunt one kind of willow-gall (Scdicis brassi- 

 coides). In this, besides the Cecidomyia, which is 

 the maker of the gall, he enumerates four other 

 insects of the same genus, one saw-fly, five species 

 of minute Lepidoptera, two or three beetles, a 

 Psocus, a heteropterous insect, an Aphis, the larvae 

 of a Chrysopa, and a Syrphide, besides four or five 

 species of Chalcididce, one Ichneumon, and one of 

 TacUnidm. Altogether about two dozen species, 

 distributed through eight orders, and all dependent 

 one upon another, and upon the fostering gall. 



We have said enough to indicate the truth of 

 Mr. Dallas's observation that "Nothing is more 

 remarkable, or more conducive to show us the 

 intricacy of the mechanism by which the balance of 

 power is maintained in the economy of uatui-e, than 

 the circumstance that many of the species of these 

 parasitic insects, whose duty is evidently that of 

 keeping down the excessive increase of their vege- 

 table-feeding brethren, are themselves kept in check 

 by other species, which, by some infallible test, 

 discover the concealed abode of their larva;, and 

 thus avenge the hapless victim upon whose substance 

 they are remorselessly preying." 



Kleptomania. — I had a good reason for disliking 

 cats. When I was a boy they used to steal my 

 young rabbits. We had a hole like a saw-pit, boarded 

 and covered over with wooden bars, in which we 

 kept, or rather tried to keep, our rabbits. One day, 

 however, the gardener caught two cats working to- 

 gether at the theft, the thinnest getting down, and 

 handing up the young rabbits to the accomplice. 

 This was his account of the matter, and I can well 

 believe it ; for Argus — a red-eyed, evil-favoured 

 Newfoundland we had— was once detected lamb- 

 killing, then washing himself in a pond, and finally 

 getting back to his kennel, and putting liis head in 

 the collar before he thought any of the household 

 were up. There he was before our breakfast, with 

 no evidence of guilt about him beyond the pleasant 

 secret sense of early digestion begun in his own m- 

 side. — Jones' Holiday Papers. 



THE "BREEZE-PLY." 



THEEE lives no greater pest to the wanderer 

 and his horses and mules, than the Breeze-fly ; 

 by Breeze-fl/y I mean flies belonging to the genus 

 Tahanus (order, Diptera, or two-winged), not those 

 of the genus (Estrus, with which it is frequently 

 confounded. The latter — commonly called Bot-fly, 

 which is also a terrible pest, alike avoided by both 

 horse and ruminant — deposits its eggs sometimes on 

 the hair, and sometimes underneath the skin ; hence 

 animals, guided by a natural instinct, or having been 

 the victims of a past and painful experience, all, at 

 the sound of his dreaded trumpet, make the best of 

 their way to the nearest water, into which they plunge. 



Fig. 1. Fig-. 2. 



On the contrary, in the Breeze-fly we have to do 

 with a veritable blood-sucker, more ravenous than 

 would be any winged leech. There are three species, 

 all three by far too plentiful for the comfort of 

 eitlier man or beast, and widely distributed in 

 North-west America. These insects have an apparent 

 ubiquity, and are literally everywhere. Ascend to 

 the regions of eternal snow, there are hungry 

 Breeze-flies awaiting one's arrival ; by the rushing 

 torrent, on the shores of the placid lake, under the 

 deep, damp shadows of the pine-trees, or on the 

 open flower-decked prairie, there are sure to be 

 Breeze-flies. One barely hears the sound of its 

 " clarion shrill " and hum of the rapidly-vibrating 

 wings, ere one feels a sharp prick, as though a red- 

 hot needle had been thrust into the flesh; stab 

 follows stab in quick succession, and unless active 

 measures of defence be resorted to, the skin 

 speedily assumes the form of wire-gauze. 



Your horses and mules, if you have any, give 

 immediate notice of the enemy, by viciously throw- 

 ing up their heads and heels, snorting, and, very 

 possibly, indeed I may say generally, summarily 

 discharging their loads, be they human or baggage, 

 over their heads. Whether success attends this 

 disagreeable habit or not, in any case a hasty retreat 

 is made for the nearest water, where both man and 

 beast well know the Breeze-fly seldom or never fol- 

 lows. I have frequently had a train of pack-mules 

 completely scattered by these formidable pests. 



The largest and fiercest is the Black Breeze-fly 

 {Tabamis atratus). liis body is like glossy black 

 velvet, frosted over with a delicate white bloom, 

 like a freshly-gathered Orleans plum ; it is about an 



