INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 83 
Small as this insect is, we must acknowledge the elephant, rhinoceros!, 
lion, and tiger, vastly his inferiors, 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 remedy 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. Camels, and even elephants 
and rhinoceroses, though*the two last coat themselves with an armour 
of mud, are attacked by this winged assassin, and afflicted with numerous 
tumours, All the inhabitants of the sea~coast of Melinda down to Cape 
Gardefui, to Saba and the South of the Red Sea, are obliged in the be- 
ginning 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.* 
This fly is truly a Beelzebub*; and perhaps it was this, or some species 
related to it, that was the prototype of the Philistine idol worshipped 
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 pro- 
perties in this respect. You will soon and rightly conjecture that I am 
speaking of the Buprestis4, so called from the injury which it has been 
supposed to occasion to oxen or kine, 
Modern writers have been much divided in their opinion to what genus 
this celebrated insect belongs. All, indeed, have regarded it as of the 
Coleoptera order; but here their agreement ceases. Linné should seem 
to have looked upon it as a species of the genus to which he has given its 
name; but these, being timber insects, are not very likely to be swallowed 
by cattle with their food. Geoffroy thinks it to be a Carabus or Cicindela, 
but with as little reason, since the species of these genera do not feed 
amongst the herbage; and though they are sometimes found running 
has searcely 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 Gstrus 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 belongs to the 
Tabanide, Wor further information the reader should consult Mr. W.S. Mac- 
Leay’s learned paper on the insect called Oistros and Asilus by the ancients. Linn, 
Trans, xiv, 853, 
1 The larve of a species of Gstrus which infests the rhinoceros is figured in the 
Trans. Ent, Soc. of London, vol, ii. pl. 22. fig. 1. 
2 Bruce’s Travels, 8vo. ii, 815. : 
5 Heb, 3457 Sy3, literally “Lord-Fly.? See 2 Kings, i, 2.; and Bochart, 
Hierozoic, ps ii. 1.4. ¢. 9. p. 490. ‘ 
4 Burn-Cow ov Ox, from fous, bos, and pnw, inflammo. M. Latreille translates if 
Créve-beuf, but improperly. 
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