682 
AETICULATA. 
THE OX-FLX. 
skin of young cattle, producing a swelling wLicli suppurates and forms a purulent humor, on 
wliicli the larvae feed. The Sheep-Fly, 
CEstrus ovis, is less than half an inch long ; 
it deposits its egg in the nostrils of the sheep ; 
the larvfe ascend to the cavity of the fore- 
head, where they remain for the season, 
often producing vertigo in their victims. 
The Bkeeze-Fly, or Bot-Fly, CEJstrus 
equiy is distinguished from the other species 
by the smoothness of the thorax, and by 
the eyes in both sexes being equidistant 
from each other ; it is not quite half an inch 
in length, with gauze-lite yellow and brown 
wings ; its chest is of a rusty color, approach- 
ing to a brown hue on the sides, and with 
a yellow tinge posteriorly ; its belly is of a 
reddish-brown superiorly, and a dirty gray beneath, with its extremity almost black. The whole 
insect is thickly covered with down. In the latter part of 
the summer the impregnated female is seen very busy about 
■^ rfM k I /. M horses, being now prepared to deposit her eggs. ' She ap- 
^^^i^W I i ^ proaches the horse, selects some part which he can reach 
with his tongue, and which he is in the frequent habit of 
licking; she balances herself for a moment, and then sud- 
denly darting down, deposits an egg on one of the hairs, 
which adheres by a glutinous substance that surrounds it. 
She continues her labor with wonderful perseverance until 
she has parted with fifty or a hundred eggs, and then having 
exhausted herself, she slowly flies away, or drops at once 
a, eggs of Breeze-Fly ; b, the same mag- ^nd dies. These eggs, taken into the stomach of the horse, 
nified; c, larva, or bot;6?, chrysalis; 6, per- are hatched, the larvfc being an inch long. These pass 
act insect , /, female depositing her eggs. ■(;]^j,Q^^g}j^ whole length of the intestines, and are voided 
with the excrement. They now dig into the earth, enter into the pupa state, and after lying 
dormant for a time, burst from their prison, mount on their wings, and seek their mates. Of 
the Horse-Fly, genus Tabamcs, we have three noted species, the Black, Belted, and Lined, with 
others, smaller and less notorious. 
THE MUSCIDJi!. 
This family includes an immense number of insects, twelve hundred species having been, it 
is said, described by a naturalist in Europe. Of these the Common House-Fly, Musca domestica, 
furnishes a familiar example. In the larva condition, some of them live in clung ; some, as the 
Flesh-Fly, M. imnitoria, often called Meat-Fly, feed upon animal substances. The Cheese- 
Hopper, Piophila easel, makes considerable leaps by bending its body into a loop and then 
suddenly straightening it. Many of these larvae, which feed upon animal substances in a state 
of decomposition, must be included among our greatest benefactors, as, by removing in a short 
space of time, matters which, if left, would corrupt and fill the atmosphere with noxious vapors, 
they prevent all the ill efiects which these efiluvia are known to produce upon animal Hfe. So 
rapidly do they perform this business, that Linnaeus calculated that the progeny of three Flesh- 
Flies would devour the carcass of a horse almost as quickly as a lion. 
The larvas are soft footless grubs, frequently destitute of any distinct head. They are generally 
produced from eggs laid by the parent in the midst of substances suited to their nourishment. 
The habits of the perfect insects are various ; many attack men and animals and seek their 
blood ; some live on the juices of flowers ; some inhabit filthy water and other foul liquids ; they 
are endowed with a telescopic tail, through which they bretithe by putting it to the surface while 
they are immersed in the water. 
THE BREEZE-FLY. 
