Blair Collection > Gaelic names of beasts (mammalia), birds, fishes, insects, reptiles, etc

408 HORNET— INSFXT
Beaw-h^-rnette (large) ; Cercole ; Honiicle (Sussex), hyrntt.
hyrnetu (A. S.).
" Connspeach " means connas beach, wrangling or dog bee.
The hornet clearwing is a great pest in the west of Scothmd,
ruining, in particular, willows, at the base of which this insect
lays its eggs, and the caterpillars completely desti'oy both bark
and wood, boring galleries therein.
HORSE-FLY (see (Fly).
HORSE-LEECH (see Leech).
HOUSE- WORM (see Worm).
HUMBLE-BEE (see Bee).
I
INSECT. — Ainle (tree) ; Croitheamh (Ir.), cruitheamh, cnuimh,
cuileag ; Dadmunn (small), dointe (black) ; Fineag (small), fiolan-
fionn (parasite), fionnag, fride (tet) ; Meanbh-bhiastag, niial, miol ;
Raodan, reud, reudan (timber) ; Tairbheann (cattle), teannshuil,
torain, toranach, torair (corn).
Cut-wast or waist (Topsell) ; Jerlie (flying); Quicklings
(young).
The tairbheann has been long known and dreaded as a
pest to cattle. A verse charm occasionally resorted to as a
supposed cure is " A mharbhadh fiolan fionn, etc., an tairbhein "
(see Worm). The tairbheann was considered by some to mean
the colic in cattle owing to a surfeit of grass or foggage, and, by
the charm, attributed to a worm. *•' Nether Lochaber" thought it
to be due to an incubating skin. The name " teann-shuil," tight
or firm eye, is derived from the fact that an insect's e^-es do not
move. The sheep-flook or fluke, alias liver-fluke, is a flat insect
which breeds in the livers of sheep, etc., and is common to all the
Highlands and to Orkney. Though it may not be known generally,
coral-insects exist in or off the island of Skye, if not also among
other of the Western Isles ; this coral is both red and white. A
wonderful species of "insect" is described in Adamnan's Life of
Colmncille, which was said to have attacked Cormac and his crew
on the third voyage of that saint to the Orkneys, as follows : " On
the tenth hour of the fourteenth day (of said voyage) a multitude
of loathsome and annoying insects, such as had never been seen
before, covered the sea in swarms, and struck the keel and sides,
the prow and stem of the vessel so ver>' violently, that it seemed
as if they would wholly penetrate the leathern covering of the
ship . . . they were about the size of frogs, they could swim, but