6176 



Insects* 



to make a particular land of hummiiig noise is corroborated by the 

 scholiast before mentioned, as well as by iElian." 



That Homer's insect was not the modern QEstrus is further ingeni- 

 ously argued " from what he says of the season in which it makes its 

 appearance [I omit the citation] : for there are few cases, I believe," 

 continues MacLeay, "of the modern G:Cstri appearing earlier than the 

 middle of July : and this circumstance, by the way, leads also to the 

 conclusion, that the English breeze or h7'ize is not the modern QLstrus, 

 although it is generally understood so to signify in the following 

 punning lines of Shakespeare : — 



' Cleopatra, 

 The breeze upon her, like a cow in June, 

 Hoists sail and flies.' 



" Now Mouffett, who, both as an entomological observer and as a 

 contemporary of Shakespeare, was likely to know the insect then named 

 brize, says expressly that the breeze, clegg, clhiger, and taon, are all 

 the same insect, his description of which proves it to be no other than 

 Haemotopota pluvialis; for which the clegg xQm'dXvi^ to this day the 

 well known and appropriate provincial name, a name totally inappli- 

 cable to the modern QKstrus. 



* * * It is not, indeed, unlikely that some of the ancients* 

 should, like Valisinieri, have seen the perfect insects of the modern 

 Qllstrus flying about cattle, and that they should have witnessed 

 the extraordinary agitation which they produce : but, however this 

 may be, they appear to have always confounded such insects with the 

 more common Tabani ; for it is the modern Tabanus, or some genus 

 extremely near to it, that they have always described as the oIVt^o$." 



Mr. Westwood is the latest scientific writer on the general subject 

 now in hand, with whose lucubrations I happen to be acquainted ; 

 and he not only determines both the tzetze and zimb of Bruce to be 

 species of the genus Glossina, of the group of " brize-flies," but has 

 treated the entire subject in his usual masterly style; and I cannot do 



* Aristotle was certainly not one of these ancients, for he never could have seen a 

 female of the modern Q^^strus, as appears from his stating that no dipterous insect has 

 a sting behind. It seems, however, to have escaped the notice of naturalists that this 

 great philosopher was acquainted with, and has described, the larva of one of the 

 modern family of CEstridge ; and, it is rather singular, precisely that larva which 

 Reaumur describes as infesting the fouces of the stag, but of which the perfect insect 

 remains still unascertained. 



