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Ox Gad Fly. Tabanus bovinus , L. 
Tabanus bovinus. 
Ox Gad Fly, with side view showing proboscis. 
The attack of the great Ox Gad Fly, the Tabanus bovinus , is often 
confused (by name at least) with that of the Ox Warble Fly, and though 
this Gad Fly is not common with us as it is on the Continent of 
Europe, during the last season I received some small amount of 
communication regarding it from various quarters. 
This “ Gad Fly,” which is figured above, may be very easily known 
from the Ox Warble Fly, by being a great deal larger. It (the Gad 
Fly) is little less than an inch in the length of its body, and from 
about, or over, an inch and a half to two inches in the spread of the 
wings. One of my own specimens is of quite the largest measurement 
mentioned above. 
The fly is mostly brown, and bees’-wax colour. The part of the 
face beneath the great eyes is yellowish; the upper part of the body 
between the two wings is brown more or less striped with greyish or 
yellowish hairs, and the abdomen is very handsomely banded across, 
with alternate brown and somewhat tawny yellow, the yellowish 
bands being on the hinder borders of the segments, whilst down the 
middle of the back—that is down the centre of the abdomen—runs a 
row of triangular white spots. The under side of the insect is chiefly 
yellowish or yellowish grey. The legs are dark tawny, or brown with 
yellow shanks, and the two wings are pale grey, with tawny colour at 
the base and along the fore edge. 
The rich dark colouring and the great size, make the Ox Gad Fly 
very easily distinguishable, but the chief peculiarity is in the form of 
