110 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



of which the fire-eyed and blood-thirsty horse-fly (7 a- 

 banus, L.) makes an incision in your flesh; and then, 

 forming a siphon of them, often carries off many drops 

 of your blood a . The pain they inflict, when they open 

 a vein, is usually very acute. A fly of this kind not 

 only occasioned Mr. Sheppard considerable pain by its 

 bite, but also produced swelling and blackness round 

 one eye ; and the flesh of his cheek and chin was so en- 

 larged from it as to hang down. In this country, how- 

 ever, their attacks are not frequent enough to make them 

 more than a minor " misery of human life ; " but the 

 burning-fly (brulot) or sand-fly of America 15 and the 

 West Indies, which seem to be the same insect, causes 

 a much more intolerable anguish, which has been com- 

 pared to what a red-hot needle or a spark of fire would 

 occasion us to endure. Lambert, in his Travels through 

 Canada, &c. says, " They are so very small as to be 

 hardly perceptible in their attacks ; and your forehead 

 will be streaming with blood before you are sensible of 

 being amongst them c ." — Yet we have one species (Sto- 

 moxys calcitrans, F.) alluded to in a former letter as so 

 nearly resembling the common house-fly d , which, though 

 its oral instruments are to appearance not near so tre- 

 mendous, is a much greater torment than the Tabanus. 

 This little pest, I speak feelingly, incessantly interrupts 

 our studies and comfort in showery weather, making us 

 even stamp like the cattle by its attacks on our legs ; 

 and, if we drive it away ever so often, returning again 



a One took eight drops from Reaumur, iv. 230. Plate VII. Fig. 5. 

 b Bartram's Travels, 383. 



c i. 127. The West India sand-fly was noticed by Robinson Kittoe, 

 Esq., who however does not recollect their fetching blood. 

 d See above, p. 48-49. 



