128 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



there seems no reason, supposing the eggs to be laid in the 

 nostrils, why the larva when hatched cannot itself make its 

 way down to the above station, as easily as that of the sheep 

 into the maxillary sinuses. Or, which perhaps is more likely, 

 when the animal draws in the air, the eggs or larvae may 

 be carried down with it, in both cases, to the place assigned 

 to them by Providence.^ 



No animal, however, is so cruelly tormented by QEstri as 

 the rein-deer ; for besides one synonymous apparently with 

 this of the deer (ffi. nasalis), from which they endeavour 

 to relieve themselves by snorting and blowing ^, they have a 

 second which produces bots under their skin ; not improbably 

 the same species that in a similar way attacks the latter, as I 

 have stated above. We have heard that the vaccine disease 

 is derived from the cow and the horse, and the small-pox is 

 said to have originated in the heels of the camel : but neither 

 the ingenious Dr. Jenner nor any other writer on this subject 

 has informed us that the rein-deer is subject to the distemper 

 last named ; yet Linne quotes the learned work of a Swedish 

 physician on Syphilis, who gravely gives this as a fact ! ! ^ 

 The inoculator, in truth, is the gad-fly, the tumours it causes 

 are the pustules, and its larvae are the pus. — It is astonishing 

 how dreadfully these poor animals in hot weather are terrified 

 and injured by them : ten of these flies will put a herd of 

 five hundred into the greatest agitation. They cannot stand 

 still a minute, no not a moment, without changing their 

 posture, puffing and blowing, sneezing and snorting, stamping 

 and tossing continually ; every individual trembling and 

 pushing its neighbour about. The ovipositor of this fly is 

 similar to that of the ox-breese, consisting of several tubular 

 joints which slip into each other ; and therefore Linne was 

 probably mistaken in supposing that it lays its eggs upon the 



1 For the account of the Oestrus, of the deer, see Reaum. v. 67 — 77. 



2 Linn. Lacli. Lapp. ii. 45. In the passage here referred to, Linne speaks 

 of two species of CEstrus, though the mode of expression indicates that he con- 

 sidered them as the same. One was (E. nasalis, from which they freed them- 

 selves by snorthig, &c., the other CE. Tarandi which formed the pustules in 

 their backs. In Si/st. N^af. 969. 3. he strangely observes under the former spe- 

 cies, " Habitat in equorum fauce, per nares intrans !" confounding probably 

 CE. veterinus of Mr. Clark with the true CE, nasalis. 



3 Lack. Lapp. i. 280. 



