INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 123 



nid(E, and perhaps is congenerous with the CEstrus of the 

 Greeks.^ 



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, move- 

 ments, 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 forsake 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. Camels, and even 

 elephants and rhinoceroses, though the two last coat them- 

 selves with an armour of mud, are attacked by this winged 

 assassin, and afflicted with numerous tumours. All the inha- 

 bitants 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 



1 It is by no means clear that the CEstrus of modern entomologists is syno- 

 nymous with the insects which the Greeks distinguish by that name. Aristotle 

 not only describes these as blood-suckers (Hist. Animal. 1. viii. c. 11.) but also as 

 furnished with a strong proboscis (1. iv. c. 7.). He observes likewise that they 

 are produced from an animal inhabiting the waters, in the vicinity of which they 

 most abound (1. viii. c. 7.). And ^lian (Hint. 1. vi. c. 38.) gives nearly the 

 same account. Comparing the CEstrus with the Myops (synonymous perhaps 

 with Tabanus Latr., except that Aristotle affirms that its larvae live in wood, 

 1. V. c. 19.), he says, the ffistrus 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 circvimstances do not at all agree with the modern 

 ffistrus, which, so far from being a blood-sucker furnished with a strong pro- 

 boscis, 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 

 Oestrus of Greece was related to Bruce's Zinib, represented in his figure with a 

 long proboscis, which makes its appearance in the neighbourhood of rivers, and 

 belongs to the Tabariidcz. For further information the reader should consult 

 Mr. W. S. MacLeay's learned paper on the insect called Oistros and Asilus by 

 the ancients. Linn. Trans, xiv, 353. 



2 The larvas of a species of CEstrus which infests the rhinoceros is figured in 

 the Trans. Ent. Sac. of London, vol. ii. pi. 22. fig. 1 . 



