Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/211
inch in length; the wings, like pale blue gauze, when at rest are always kept in a horizontal position; the alulets are large and strong. The eyes are exquisitely beautiful, in colour dark-blue, but glittering with the lustre of highly-polished gems, and nearly covering the entire head.
The next in size is the Belted Breeze-fly (Tabanus cinctus), about one-third smaller than his sable brother. He is clad in bright orange livery, banded with stripes almost black; and has a most showy appearance, being decidedly the best dressed fly of the family. The eyes are emerald green, and, when viewed in the bright sunlight, have the appearance of being cut into numerous facets.
The third or smallest is the Lined Breeze-fly (Tabanus lineatus); of a bluish colour, and only conspicuous from having a white line along the top of his head. In this fly the eyes are of bluish-green, and quite as beautiful as in the two preceding.
The lady Breeze-fly, I am grieved to say, is far more to be dreaded than her lord. These insects can never, one would suppose, enjoy the luxury and delight, or whatever may be the proper term applicable to such a universal habit as kissing. How could a winged lady, I should like to know, be kissed by a winged wooer when her lips are a bundle of lancets, six in number, and as sharp as a surgeon's? True the male has four blade-like instruments arming the mouth, but it is questionable whether he uses them for other purposes than that of sucking nectar from flowers. The apparatus of the female is beautifully adapted for puncturing the skin and then pumping up the fluid through the sheath of the lancets, that acts as a tube or canula. It would be of trifling interest to advert more in detail to the minute anatomy of these insects; that can be better learned from works on structural entomology; the habits of the insect in far-away lands, sketched from personal gleanings, being more strictly "Science Gossip." The rambler alone has an opportunity to investigate the haunts and watch the habits of strange beasts, birds, and insects; to the anatomist at home, in cosy closet, belongs the task of developing, with scalpel and microscope, the complicated machinery by which life's varied duties are carried on.
The larva lives in the earth, a grub easily dug up in the moist prairie lands; of an elongated sub-cylindrical form, tapering off towards each extremity; its colour a dingy yellow; destitute of feet; having a body divided into twelve segments, each segment being banded with a row of minute horny hooks—an admirable contrivance, enabling it to drag itself along through the earth. The head is horny, and brownish-yellow in colour, also armed with hooks to aid in progression. The pupa I have never sen, but De Geer tells us the pupa of Tabanus bovinus is "naked, incomplete, elongated, sub-cylindrical, with six spines at the end of the body, the margins of the abdominal segments ciliated, and the forehead bi-tuberculed."
Where or when the eggs of the Tabanus are deposited is not generally known, but it is more than probable on the stems of plants, to which they are fastened by a glutinous secretion; the grub when hatched, falling on the ground, at once buries itself. Neither is it known how long a time the larva remains in the earth ere it changes to the pupa form.
I remember once being busily occupies all day collecting beetles and other insects, in the dense, shady pine-forests, close to a small stream called the Mooyee, that flows down the western slope of the Rocky Mountains: boxes, bottles, bags, even my hat, indeed every available locality about my person was appropriated to the stowage and transport of the proceeds of my hunt. My horse, rather a wild Mustang, had been tethered close to the water, and thus kept clear of the Breeze-flies during my absence; soon, however, after mounting him to return, emerging from the forest, I came on a small patch of open prairie land, but no sooner was I clear of the timber than the pests were at us. My beast commenced practising every species of jump and leap that it was possible for a horse to execute, and several of them of a nature so extraordinary that one would have thought no animal that ever went on four legs could accomplish; he pranced, shied, kicked, leaped forward, backward, sideways—in a word, performed such demoniacal pranks, that, although a practised horseman, I found it a most difficult matter to keep my seat. As a finale, off he went like a mad creature, caring nothing for all my efforts to stop him; then, as if from sheer madness caused by the punctures of the flies, that followed like a swarm of enraged bees, he stopped suddenly short, viciously threw his head between his forelegs, and at the same time elevated his hind ones into the air; the whole being performed with such sudden and savage violence that I was pitched clean out of the saddle: boxes, bags, together with all my insect treasures, lay scattered over the prairie are ere I could regain my feet I had the satisfaction of seeing him put his legs into the bridge-reins, drag it clean off his head, and, with a snort that sounded mightily like a derisive horse laugh, he galloped off leaving me to my own devices. I mention this little adventure to show how terribly these pests can madden an animal.
From an intimacy by no means sought, or on my part cultivated, with the Tabanidæ, or Breeze-flies, I am disposed to think the fly called Zimb, and described by Bruce, belonged to this family, and was not an Œstrus, as many have supposed. Speaking of the Zimb, in reference to the camel and elephant: "When the first of these animals are attacked, its body, head, and legs break out into large bosses, which swell, burst, and purify, to its certain destruction." Just such effects have I again and