No 175.1 
803 
rope (Musca domes!tea) and which he therefore names Musca harpyia. 
It is truly a harpy, appearing in swarms in the hottest period of the 
year, particularly in dwellings where the utmost neatness is not observed; 
impudently obtruding without invitation, and making itself the fiist 
seated guest at the dinner table, and ere grace is said, freely regaling 
itself from every dish upon the board. And the pertinacity with which 
a particular individual will often persist in travelling about our faces, or 
other parts of our bodies which are not covered with clothing, in order 
to drink up the perspiration which exudes from the skin, is often most 
annoying. Another species, also bred in the dung-hill, the Stomoxys 
Calcilrans, Linn., though it so exactly resembles the common house¬ 
fly, as to be popularly regarded as identical with it, is too voracious to 
thus content itself with the sanies that perspires from our bodies, but 
sucks the very blood of both man and beast, inflicting in this act a 
piercing bite that is most tormenting, particularly to the horse. 
Though nature has assigned decaying animal matter to the Lucilian 
nnd Calliphorian flies as the domain in which their young are to be 
reared, ns already intimated, they sometimes overleap their appropriate 
bounds and deposit their eggs in the ulcers of living animals, thereby 
causing these to swarm with maggots. And of all animals, the sheep, 
inoffensive and defenceless, is the greatest sufferer in this particular; 
nnd this is the case, alas, too commonly in consequence of the negli¬ 
gence and inattention of its inhuman owner. In warm weather, where 
ever upon a sheep the skin is fretted and abraded so that moisture ex¬ 
udes from it and a running sore is formed, it is sure to become the re¬ 
pository of the eggs of these flies. The following may be specified as 
the common causes of such sores and the consequent foundation of this 
malady. 
1st. Bucks when kept together in the same field (as they necessarily 
are in most instances) become addicted to the habit of bunting each oth¬ 
er ; and an instance is related to me in which a valuable animal got his 
neck broken whilst indulging in this pastime as many are inclined to 
regard it. Frequently, hereby, blood or sanious matter is made to start 
out, moistening the wool around the roots of the horns. This wet 
wool becomes fly-blowed and the maggots thus obtain a lodgment here. 
Esq. Livingston who has had forty years experience, generally with a 
large flock, informs me that during all that time this casualty among 
his bucks has been the only thing of the nature of a disease, for which 
he has had occasion to resort to a medicinal application. 
2d. Instances occur, though they are very rare, in which one of the 
horns at the end of its first volution grows almost in contact with the 
head, hereby pressing and matting together the wool between it and the 
