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will presently be given, and which treats of what is, without doubt, 
under certain circumstances, a practical remedy against the so-called 
gadflies of the family Tabanidie, a widespread group of insects com- 
prising nearly 1,500 species, of which about 150 occur in North America. 
The injury which these insects do by annoying live stock and reducing 
their condition, as well as by occasionally transmitting a case of anthrax 
or malignant pustule to human beings, is sufficiently great to make the 
matter of remedies of some slight importance. The bite of the adult 
fly in itself is rather severe and painful, but does not seem to be so 
poisonous as that of mosquitoes or buffalo gnats. <A full account of 
what is known of the habits of the more abundant and prominent 
of the North American species will be found in Professor Osborn’s 
excellent account of the insects affecting domestic animals, published 
as Bulletin No. 5, new series, of the Division of Entomology, of the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture. 
Just as Professor Porchinski points out for Russia, so in the United 
States no practical remedy has been definitely suggested for gadflies. 
The oily mixtures applied to cattle as preventives against the attacks 
of the horn fly, stable fly, and the botflies, will doubtless act as deter- 
rents to the gadflies, but there has been lacking any suggestion of the 
simple and practical nature of that advanced by Porchinski, fortified 
as it is by an apparently full and careful series of experiments. 
It is a great satisfaction to the writer to find that he anticipated by 
observation, though not by extended experiments, so interesting and 
important a paper. In his experiments in the summer of 1892 in the 
use of kerosene against the larvee of mosquitoes in the Catskill Moun- 
tains, the results of which were presented before the Association of 
Economic Entomologists at its fourth annual meeting, at Rochester, 
N. Y., in August of the same year, he discovered, and recorded on 
page 13 of Volume V of Insect Life, the fact that among the insects 
captured by the kerosene on the surface of the small pool upon which 
he was experimenting were 27 specimens of Chrysops hilaris O.-S., one 
of the commonest gadflies of that region. The experiments were con- 
ducted against mosquitoes, and the significance of the gadfly captures 
was not pointed out in the article referred to. Nevertheless, the 
published note may be considered both as anticipatory and confirma- 
tive of Porchinski’s results. 
TABANIDA AND A VERY SIMPLE MEANS OF DESTROYING THEM. 
By I. Porchinski. 
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Tabanide occur in the whole territory of Russia, from the Arctic regions to her 
southernmost latitudes, and the farther south the greater the number of species. 
Although at the north the number of species is smaller, they multiply in some 
localities in enormous quantities. Of the larger species at the north of Russia there 
are notable, besides Tabanus tarandinus, which is a veritable scourge of the northern 
deer, Tabanus bevinus, the ordinary T. montanus, tropicus, and luridus, and the old 
