INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 153 



Small as this insect is, we must acknowledge the ele- 

 phant^ rhinoceros, lion and tiger vastly his inferior. 

 The appearance, nay the very sound of it occasions 

 more trepidation, movements and disorder both in the 

 human and brute creation, than whole herds of the 

 most ferocious wild beasts in tenfold greater numbers 

 than they ever are would produce. As soon as this~plague 

 appears, and their buzzing is heard, all the cattle for- 

 sake their food, and run wildly about the plain till they 

 die worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No re- 

 medy remains for the residents on such spots but to 

 leave the black earth and hasten down to the sands of 

 Atbara, and there they remain while the rains last. Ca- 



is synonymous with the insects which the Greeks distinguish by that 

 name. Aristotle not only describes these as blood-stickers (Hist. Ani- 

 mal. 1. viii. c. 11.) but also as furnished with a strong proboscis (1. 4. 

 c. 7-)- He observes likewise that they are produced from an animal 

 inhabiting the ivaters, in the vicinity of which they most abound 

 (1. viii. c. 7.)- And ^Ehan (Hist. 1. vi. c. 38.) gives nearly the same 

 account. Comparing the CEstrus with the Myops (synonymous per- 

 haps with Tabanus, Latr., except that Aristotle affirms that its larva; 

 live in wood, 1. v. c. 19.) he says, the CEstrus for a fly is one of the 

 largest ; it has a stiff 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 CEstrus, though it has a 

 smaller sting. 



These characters and circumstances do not at all agree with the 

 modern CEstrus, 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 neighbourhood of rivers, and be- 

 longs, perhaps, to Latreille's genus Pangonia, as observed above, 

 (Tanyglossa, Meig.) or to his Nemestrina. Olivier, indeed, speaks of 

 the former genus as frequenting flowers like the Bombylii : but this 

 the male Tabani do, while the females are furious blood-suckers. See 

 Latr. Hist. Nat. xiv. 318 ; and Gen. Crust. % Ins. iv. 281, 30/. 



