On this same mountain grew in abundance a kind of _Muscus lichenoides_ of a greyish black colour, as if scorched or burnt, different from what authors have described, being more coriaceous and greenish, while that is black and brittle, almost like burnt paper, and smooth underneath; whereas the plant I here observed has the under side entirely covered with fibres like little roots. (This was the true _Lichen velleus_ of Linnæus, preserved in his herbarium, and figured in Dillenius, _tab. 82. f. 5_. See _Fl. Lapp. ed. 2. 360_.)
The branches of Spruce Fir here began to show that appearance to which Clusius, if my memory does not deceive me, has given the name of _Pinus nodosa_. These knots consist of innumerable little plates, looking as if all the buds had been cut short, and platted together. In the inside is lodged a great mass of very small oblong insects, or rather eggs.
Although I walked about a good deal, and was not inattentive to what came in my way, I met with nothing peculiarly worthy of notice. On the grass I frequently observed that substance like saliva, which the common people call Frog-spittle, and which envelops a little pale flesh-coloured insect like a small Grasshopper. This insect, though not arrived at maturity, moved in some degree, and showed sufficient signs of the family to which it belonged, though it was not yet old enough to cut capers. I removed the frothy moisture from some of these insects, and on returning to them in the course of an hour, I found them covered as before; a proof of the origin of the froth, which is produced by the animal for the purpose of protecting its tender skin against the violent heat of the sun.
Whilst I was busied in these observations, a number of cattle came running over the fields with the greatest velocity. Even the most miserably lean cows, which one would think scarcely able to drag one leg after another, went skipping along like does. _Hic pauper cornua sumit_[46]. They twisted their tails round and round, and went bounding and frisking about, till they at length reached a puddle, where they stopped all at once, as having found a sure asylum against the enemy that had put them to flight. Anxious to investigate what it could be that excited such extraordinary agitation, and prompted such exertions as neither the whip nor the fear of immediate death could occasion, I discovered it to be an insect which I had already met with lower down in the country, and which is no other than an _Oestrus_ or Gad-fly, (_Asilus crabroniformis_). Our Natural Historians confound the _Oestrus_ with the _Tabanus_, which are as distinct from each other as a hare from a bear[47]. Cattle indeed are as much incommoded by the _Broms_ (_Tabanus bovinus_) as by the very worst of the Fly or _Musca_ tribe, to which the _Tabanus_ certainly belongs; but by the _Oestrus_ (_Asilus_) they are frightened out of their wits. This insect does not fix itself on the body of the animal, but on the feet, between the larger and smaller hoofs. As it scarcely ever flies higher above the earth than two or three spans, and in general not more than four or five inches, the cattle, when aware of it, run as fast as they can till they get their feet into water or marshy ground, in which situations they are free from danger. The habit of the insect is that of an _Ichneumon_, and it much resembles a Hornet, being of a yellowish colour, with a small sharp point at its tail curved forwards. See the figure and description of Frisch, and my own specimen.