OX GAD FLY. 
119 
the mouth parts of the female, which are especially adapted for blood¬ 
sucking. By the means of the sharp knife or lancet-like apparatus 
enclosed in the proboscis, the female can pierce into the hide of the 
animal and suck the blood ; and this apparatus, which is very plainly 
to be seen, is another distinction between this Grad Fly and the Ox 
Warble Fly, which has nothing that can be called a feeding mouth. 
This Gad Fly is not, as far as I am aware, at all common in 
England, but now and then an enquiry or a specimen is sent, and last 
year one was forwarded to me on the 26th August, by Mr. James 
Carter, of Burton House, Masham, Yorks., with the observation that 
this large insect was occasionally found in the neighbourhood. 
I had also a note regarding Gad Fly from Miss Fleming, 
Monasterevan, Co. Kildare, Ireland, describing the buzz of this great 
fly, a kind of heavy droning intense noise, easily known when it has 
once been heard. This loud hum is mentioned by various writers as 
terrifying to cattle. 
The maggot, which is not unlike that of Daddy Longlegs, lives in 
the earth (not in the hides of cattle). It is somewhat cylindrical in 
shape, smallest at the extremities, or more especially in front, greyish 
white in colour, and somewhat darker at the divisions of the segments ; 
legless ; and has a shining brown elongated head, furnished with two 
strong jaws or curved hooks, and has a fleshy protuberance at the 
end of the tail. The grubs are stated to be found in meadow land, 
and more especially in wood land. 
“ Their development and pupation take place similarly to that 
of the Daddy Longlegs.”* 
The pupa or chrysalis is long and somewhat cylindrical, with six 
spines at the end of the tail; but as description does not very well 
convey a precise idea of the appearance of different states of insects, 
I add a figure of an American kind of Gad Fly, in its three stages, 
by Prof. Biley, who kindly allows me to make use of it. 
- The life history of this genus of flies (the Tabani) has not as far as 
I am aware been yet recorded from observations made in Britain, 
but it is given by Dr. J. R. Schiner, as follows, in Germany 
“ The grubs live in damp earth or sand, or under decaying leaves 
and stems in damp places. 
“ The flies are often to be found in cattle pastures, and by roads 
and paths, where they rest on the stems of trees, waiting for the 
* I have not had any opportunity myself of seeing these flies in their maggot 
or chrysalis state, therefore I give the description of the maggot mainly from the 
well-known observations of De Geer, and regarding habits mainly from com¬ 
parison of information given in ‘ Fauna Austriaca, ‘ Die Fliegen, J. R. Schiner, 
‘ Praktische Insekten Kunde,’ E. L. Taschenberg, and ‘Introd. to Classification of 
Insects,’ J. 0, Westwood, 
