34 
to spend the night among grass and like herbage. They are exceedingly 
active, and no sooner have they gained a foothold on an animal than 
they are busy at their bloody work, selecting the breast, flanks, ears, 
nose, or wherever the skin is the most easily punctured. 
Very inconspicuous in their flight, making little noise, seldom arising 
more than a few ffiet from the ground, they often bite mules working in 
the fields, sufficiently to cause death before their presence in considera- 
ble numbers has been discovered. This will, perhaps, account for the 
prevailing notion that the bite of these gnats flrst appearing is the 
most poisonous, for inclement weather and adverse winds may cause 
them to appear, for the first, at any time during the .breeding season, 
in localities where they do not actually originate, and, as will be shown 
farther on, the same wind that holds them back from one locality may 
convey them to another. It would appear as rather more probable, 
however, that the poison introduced into the animals’ system by the 
bites of the first gnats, unless sufficient to prove fatal, may to some ex- 
tent serve as an antidote for that introduced by those appearing later ; 
and should this poison remain in the system with considerable stability, 
the fact would also account for acclimated stock being less susceptible to 
poison from the bites of these gnats than those unacclimated. Except 
in the case of great numbers, death does not necessarily follow the bite 
of these gnats, and even then it is not suddenly fatal. Mules that at 
night do not appear to be seriously injured will often be found dead 
next morning. 
Stock, and mules especially, that have been fatally bitten by gnats 
are affected in much the same manner as with colic, and, in fact, many 
think the bites bring on that disease. But Dr. Warren King, of 
Vicksburg, who has made a large number of post mortem examina- 
tions, states that he has never been able to obtain any facts which would 
justify such a conclusion. 
Dr. King opines that the effects of these bites from gnats are on 
animals much the same as that of the rattlesnake on the human sys- 
tem ; and this seems to be the generally accepted opinion among the 
more intelligent planters. 
In regard to artificial methods of counteracting the poison of gnats, 
there is of course no end, apropos to which, one planter remarks that if 
the gnats failed to kill the mule the remedies used certainly would. 
Be this as it may, I could learn of no measures that had been generally 
tested and proved effective, and no opportunity was offered me to make 
any experiments in that direction. 
Dr. King recommends rubbing the affected animal thoroughly with 
water of ammonia, and administering internally a mixture of 40 to 50 
grains of carbonate of ammonia to one pint of whisky, repeating the 
dose every three or four hours until relieved. The doctor claims to 
have never lost an animal under this treatment, although they were 
sometimes apparently beyond recovery. This measure I do not think 
