INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



121 



they occasion considerable tumours under the skin, where the 

 bots reside, varying iii number from three or four to thirty or 

 forty ; but these seem unattended by any pain, and are so far 

 from being injurious, that they are rather regarded as proofs 

 of the goodness of the animal, since these flies only attack 

 young and healthy subjects. The tanners also prefer those 

 hides that have the greatest number of bot-holes in them, 

 which are always the best and strongest. ^ 



The Stomoxys, and several of the other flies before enume- 

 rated, as well as the dog and American ticks, are as prejudicial 

 to the ox as to the horse. One species of Hippobosca I have 

 reason to believe is appropriated to them ; yet, since a single 

 specimen only has hitherto been taken ^, little can be said with 

 respect to it. — A worse pest than any hitherto enumerated 

 is a minute fly, concerning the genus of which there is some 

 doubt, Fabricius considering it as a Rhagio (i?. columbas- 

 chensis) and Latreille as a Simulium ' ; but to whatever genus 

 it may belong, it is certainly a most destructive little creature. 

 In Servia and the Bannat it attacks the cattle in infinite 

 numbers, penetrates, according to Fabricius, their generative 

 organs, but according to other accounts their nose and ears, 

 and by its poisonous bite destroys them in the short space of 

 four or five hours. Much injury was sustained in 1813 from 

 this insect in the palatinate of Arad in Hungary and in the 

 Bannat ; in Banlack not fewer than two hundred horned 

 cattle perishing from its attacks, and in Yersetz, 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, 



1 Much of the information here collected is taken from Reaum. iv. Mem. 12.; 

 and Clark in Linn. Trans, iii. 289. 



2 The writer of the present letter is possessor of this specim.en, which he took 

 on himself in a field where oxen were feeding. Plate V. Fig. 1. 



3 In the Systema Antliatorum (p. 56. ) Fabricius most strangely considers this 

 insect as synonymous with Culex reptans L., calling it Scatopse reptans, and 

 dropping his former reference to Pallas, and account of its injurious properties. 

 Meigen {Dipt. i. 294.) makes this insect a Simulia, under the name of S. macu- 

 lata. It is represented by Coquebert, whose figure is copied in the translation 

 of Kbllar's work referred to above, and also in the next page. 



