TCD MS 10516 folio 69 verso
[12th October 1916] nest; others may tear down some pebbles from the gate of their tenement in a half-hearted effort to close the door. But soon they will desist; they dash upon the wounded and drag them to their insect-store.
The biting-fly, Stomoxys calcitrans, was an incessant nuisance by day. It was remarkable that this fly seldom attacked the exposed skin. When wearing stockings and short trousers so that the knees were left bare, the insect always preferred to force its proboscis through the stocking into the skin, rather than suck from the exposed knee. It was difficult at first to account for this peculiarity in habit, but I suspect that as this fly is accustomed to suck the blood of animals with hairy coats, it imagines that the stocking is a hairy surface sim-