10 
have been written about the year 1712. Subsequently, in the 
second volume of his Works, he gives some less accurate details, 
of the Horse-bots. The accounts of this indefatigable writer 
are plentifully stored with Quotations from the Italian and 
Latin Poets, in the passages in which he apprehended allusion 
was made to these animals; and he unfortunately too implicitly 
gave credit to his friend and countryman. Dr. Gaspari, respect¬ 
ing their mode of propagation, which led others more readily 
to believe in the same delusion.* 
The truly ingenious Reaumur, in France, was, in point of 
time, the next who studied the manners of these animals. He 
repeated nearly all the experiments of Vallisneri, giving far¬ 
ther details, and a better account of them, accompanied with 
more correct figures. He succeeded, though with much 
difficulty and labour, in obtaining two or three flies from the 
Maggot of the Ox-bot. His details, though somewhat prolix, 
are interesting ; but his matter, however, is not kept sepa¬ 
rated from other objects, and we may observe that, if all the 
very numerous subjects of natural history were so treated, no 
ordinary time would suffice for the perusal of the volumes they 
would extend through. 
Linneus has usefully exhibited an example of conciseness 
for these pursuits, which rebukes, as it were, the dilated details 
of several writers in natural history of this period. The actual 
fly of the Ox-bot has been truly rare, and difficult to obtain, 
and is seldom met with in Cabinets of Insects ; and what is 
singular is, it remained unknown to Linneus to the last, for he 
described, through all the editions ol the Systema Naturae, 
the large Horse-bot with spotted wings, for it. I propose 
hereafter, when I treat of this species in particular, to give an 
account of a method I used for procuring this Fly, and that 
# Vallisneri Opere Physico-Mediche, Venezia 1733, p. 217, et Vol. II. p. 1. 
