“If at such a time you were to look through an elf-bore in wood, where a thorter knot has been taken out, or through the hole made by an elf-arrow (which has probably been made by a Warble) in the skin of a beast that has been elf-shot, you may see the elf-bull naiging (butting) with the strongest bull or ox in the herd; but you will never see with that eye again.” In the Scottish history of the trials of witches, we find the following: Alexander Smaill offended Jonet Cock, who threatened him, “deare sail yow rewe it! and within half ane howre therafter, going to the pleugh,--befoir he had gone one about, their came ane great Wasp or Bee, so that the foir horses did runne away with the pleugh, and wer liklie to have killed themselves, and the said Alexander and the boy that was with him, narrowlie escaped with their lyves.”[1014] Possibly the incident is not exaggerated, as a single Œstrus will turn the oxen of a whole herd, and render them furious. * * * * * Spencer, in his Travels in Circassia, speaks of a poisonous Fly, known in Hungary under the name of the Golubaeser-fly, which is singularly destructive to cattle. The Hungarian peasants, to account for the severity of the bite of this insect, tell us that in the caverns, near the Castle of Golubaes, the renowned champion, St. George, killed the dragon, and that its decomposed remains have continued to generate these insects down to the present day. So firmly did they believe this, that they closed up the mouths of the caverns with stone walls.[1015] ORDER X. APHANIPTERA. Pulicidæ--Fleas. The name _Pulex_, given to the Flea by the Romans, is stated by Isodorus to have been derived from _pulvis_, dust, _quasi pulveris filius_. Our English name _Flea_, and the German _Flock_, are evidently deduced from the quick motions of this insect. As to the origin of Fleas, Moufet had a similar notion to that contained in the word Pulex, if we adopt the etymology of Isodorus, for he says they are produced from the dust, especially when moistened with urine, the smallest ones springing from putrid matter. Scaliger relates that they are produced from the moistened humors among the hairs of dogs.[1016] Conformable to the curious notion of Moufet, Shakspeare says: _2 Car._ I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas: I am stung like a tench. _1 Car._ Like a tench? by the mass, there is ne’er a king in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock. _2 Car._ Why, they will allow us ne’er a jorden, and then we leak in your chimney; and your _chamber-ley breeds fleas_ like a loach.[1017] “Martyr, the author of the Decads of Navigation, writes, that in Perienna, a countrey of the Indies, the drops of sweat that fall from their slaves’ bodies will presently turn to Fleas.”[1018]