100 
DIPTERA. 
Dent blood-suckers. The Simulidie or Sand-flies are 
fortunately Represented in this country by few species, 
only two being generally distributed. They are even 
more troublesome than gnats or mosquitoes in the 
northern parts of Europe and in several parts of North 
and South America, where they abound. They are 
found in damp marshy places and fly in great swarms, 
and bite severely. In the Bannat of Temesvar, in 
Hungar} r , the myriads of Simulium Colombascliense 
often prove fatal, not only to cattle, but to man¬ 
kind. 
The family of the Chironomydce contains the Midges, 
small gnat-like insects, whose larvae live in water or in 
wet ground, but a 
-lew dwell beneath 
- fll -—- 
the bark of trees; 
somespeciesoccurin 
innumerable mul¬ 
titudes, and must 
contribute, as Mr. 
F.Walker savs, “to 
remove or change 
the decaying vege- 
, table matter, which 
is their earliest 
food.” These in¬ 
sects may be often 
seen in summer 
Larva oy Gnat ^natural size an J magnified). 
evenings in im¬ 
mense swarms ho¬ 
vering in the air. The larva of Chironomus jyhnnosits 
is the blood-worm, so abundant in stagnant water. The 
