152 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



space of four or five hours. Much injury was sustained 

 in 1813 from this insect in the palatinate of Arad in Hun- 

 gary and in the Bannat ; in Banlack not fewer than two 

 hundred horned cattle perishing from its attacks, and in 

 Versetz, five hundred. It appears towards the latter end 

 of April or beginning of May in such indescribable swarms 

 as to resemble clouds, proceeding as some think from 

 the region of Mehadia, but according to others from 

 Turkey. Its approach is the signal for universal alarm. 

 The cattle fly from their pastures; and the herdsman 

 hastens to shut up his cows in the house, or, when at a 

 distance from home, to kindle fires, the smoke of 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 a . 



Tabani in this country do not seem to annoy our oxen 

 so much as they do our horses : perhaps for this immu- 

 nity they may be indebted to the thickness of their hides ; 

 but in some parts of Africa insects of this tribe do incre- 

 dible 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 Tsalt- 

 salya or Zimb of Bruce (and the world seems now disposed 

 to give more credit to the accounts of that traveller) 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 Latreille's genus Pangojiia, taken 

 from Tabanus, L., and perhaps is congenerous with the 

 GEslrus of the Greeks b . 



a Fabr. Ent. Syst. Em. iv. 2/6. 22. Latr. Hist. Nat. &c. xiv. 283. 



Leipz. Zell. Jul. 5, 1813, quoted in Geraiar's Mag. der Ent. ii. 18. r >, 



b It is by no means dear that the CEstrus of modern entomologists 



