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Updated: October 26, 2025
Cattle and other live stock also are seriously molested by mosquitoes as well as by another set of pests, the horse-flies. Adults and larvae of these flies have been found in the stomachs of the dowitcher, the pectoral sandpiper, the hudsonian godwit, and the killdeer.
It floated on the surface of the water, penetrated into our clothes, hair, eyes, and ears, our provisions were covered over with it, and our blankets half buried when we lay down at nights, it was a perpetual and never-ceasing torment, and as if to increase our miseries we were again afflicted with swarms of large horse-flies, which bit us dreadfully.
Dick was obliged to confess the dish a failure, so it was thrown out after having been offered to Crusoe, who gave it one sniff and turned away in silence. Then they mounted and resumed their journey. At this place mosquitoes and horse-flies troubled our hunters and their steeds a good deal. The latter especially were very annoying to the poor horses.
Animal life was scarce; there were a few flycatchers amongst the birds, and armadillos were the only mammals. I noted here another instance of the instinctive dread that insects have of their natural enemies. The horse-flies were so bloodthirsty that we could kill them with the greatest ease with our hands on the mules' necks, or if we drove them away they would return immediately.
Often he stopped to frighten from the quivering flank of the brown mare before him the voracious horse-flies, colored like the scum of the stagnant pools, and clinging and sucking like leeches. She was his favorite, the pride of his farm, for had she not, years before, brought Jenny on her faithful shoulder to the new, happy home?
This seems to harden the skin and heal the wound even when working with the collar in contact with it. A piece of bacon rind tied upon the collar over the wound is also an excellent remedy. In Texas, when the horse-flies are numerous, they attack animals without mercy, and where a contusion is found in the skin they deposit eggs, which speedily produce worms in great numbers.
I succeeded in saving a great part of our meat by smoking it. Our horses were greatly distressed by large horse-flies, and every now and then the poor brutes would come and stand in the smoke of our fires to rid themselves of their persevering tormentors.
"That is something," replied Morton; "but yet in fair love and goodwill, I must still pray you to keep on your guard. The foes are stirring again, as horse-flies and hornets become busy so soon as the storm-blast is over.
The wild drove halted at about fifty paces from the stream; the black and white bull advanced alone and, first leisurely taking a drink, plunged into the water; he reached the opposite bank, where he halted and turned right about. Then the entire drove, above which was hovering a cloud of horse-flies, dashed at full gallop into the stream to join their guide.
After a time, the state of inaction to which we were doomed, aggravated by the stings of mosquitoes and large green-eyed flies, became a perfect torture. "Those are horse-flies," said Sumichrast to Lucien; "they are very fond of blood, and are a misery to all kinds of mammals from one end of America to the other."
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