BUFFALO BUG. See CARPET BEErix.
a large, coarse, fresh water fish of which there are four varieties three inhabiting the waters of the Mississippi Valley, and one the river Usumacinto in Mexico. The formation of the head suggests the name, for from the nose to the top of the shoulders it has the high, humpy pitch of the bison. In Louisiana they are known as sgourd-heads.s The common big-mouthed buffalo-fish (Ictiobus cyprinella) reaches a length of three feet and a weight of 50 pounds. In the spring freshets of the Missis sippi Valley, at spawning' time, it swims in great shoals on to the flooded marshes, where the receding waters make it an easy victim to the farmers, who kill great numbers of them for fertilizers. In body they are stout and of a dull, brownish-olive hue, not silvery, with dusky fins. The black, or mongrel, buffalo fish (1. urns) has a smaller, more oblique mouth, and a much darker color; the fins being almost black. The small-mouthed or white, buffalo-fish (I. bubalus) is the most abundant. It does not run so large as the common buffalo, 35 pounds being its limit. In color it is pale, almost silvery. Consult Jordan and Evermann, (American Food and Game Fishes.> a fly allied to the black-fly (q.v.), Simulium pecuarum, of the family Simuliide, order Diptera, a larger and more formidable species than the black-fly of the northern and subarctic regions. It attacks in the lower Ohio and the Mississippi Valley various domestic cattle, horses, sheep, poultry, dogs and cats, and is especially hurtful to mules and horses, killing many. Hogs show at first the effects of the bite but very little; yet large numbers die soon after the attack, while others die about six weeks after the disappearance of the buffalo-gnats; they usually perish from large ulcerating sores, which cause blood-poisoning. Animals bitten by many buffalo-gnats show all the symptoms of colic, and many people believe that these bites bring on that disease. The animal at
tacked first becomes frantic, but within a very short time ceases to show symptoms of pain, submits passively to the affliction, rolls over and dies; sometimes all within the space of three or four hours. Animals of various kinds become gradually accustomed to these bites, and during a long-continued invasion but few are killed toward the end of it. The larva: are found more particularly attached to submerged logs, wholly or partly submerged stumps, brush, bushes and other like objects in the larger creeks and bayous of the region to which they are common. They cluster to gether, and fastened by the posterior pro tuberance or by a minute thread, they wander and sway about, but do not venture above the water. When fully grown the larva: descend to near the bottom of the stream, sometimes 8 or 10 feet, to make their COMM The adult fly, on emergence from the pupa, rises quickly to the surface, runs a few inches over the water, and the wings expanding al. most instantly it darts away. The time of appearance of the swarms is regulated by the earliness or lateness of the spring, and con sequently it is much earlier an the southern parts of the Mississippi Valley. As a rule, they can be expected soon after the first continuous warm weather in early spring. In 1885 the first swarms were observed in Louisiana, 11 March, in Mississippi and Tennessee, I May, and in Indiana and Illinois, 12 May. Their presence is at once indicated by the action of the various animals in the field. Horses and mules snort, switch their tails, stamp the ground and show great restlessness and symp toms of fear. If not harnessed to plow and wagon they will try to escape by running away. Cattle rush wildly about in search of relief. Consult Osborn, Affecting Domestic Animals> (Bulletin 5 a. ser. United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Entomology, 1896).