154< INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS- 



mels, and even elephants and rhinoceroses, though the 

 two last coat themselves with an armour of mud, are at- 

 tacked by this winged assassin and afflicted with nume- 

 rous tumours. All the inhabitants of the sea-coast of 

 Melinda down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba and the south 

 of the Red Sea, are obliged in the beginning of the rainy 

 season to remove to the next sand to prevent all their 

 stock of cattle from being destroyed. This is no partial 

 emigration — the inhabitants of all the countries from the 

 mountains of Abyssinia northward, to the confluence of 

 the Nile and Astaboras, are once a year obliged to 

 change their abode and seek protection in the sands of 

 Beja; nor is there any alternative or means of avoiding 

 this, though a hostile band were in the way capable of 

 spoiling them of half their substance 3 . This fly is truly 

 a Beelzebub 5 : and perhaps it was this, or some species 

 related to it, that was the prototype of the Philistine idol 

 worshiped under that name and in the form of a fly. 



I must not conclude this subject of insects hurtful to 

 our cattle, without noticing a beetle much talked of by 

 the ancients for its mischievous properties in this respect. 

 You will soon and rightly conjecture that I am speaking 

 of the Buprestis , so called from the injury which it has 

 been supposed to occasion to oxen or kine. 



Modern writers have been much divided in their opi- 

 nion to what genus this celebrated insect belongs. All 

 indeed have regarded it as of the Coleoptera order ; but 

 here their agreement ceases. Linne should seem to 



a Bruce's Travels, 8vo. ii. 315. 



•» Heb. Mi bja literally " Lord-Fly." See 2 Kings, i. 2 ; and Bo- 

 ehart. Hierozoic. ps. ii. 1. 4. c. 9. p. 490. 



e Bum-Cow or Ox, from /3ou? and tt^o> inflammo. M. Latreille 

 translates it Crcve-bocvf, but improperly. 



