The latter especially were very annoying to the poor horses.

They bit them so much that the blood at last came trickling down their sides.

They were troubled also, once or twice, by cockchafers and locusts, which annoyed them, not indeed by biting, but by flying blindly against their faces, and often-narrowly missed hitting them in the eyes.

Once particularly they were so bad that Henri in his wrath opened his lips to pronounce a malediction on the whole race, when a cockchafer flew straight into his mouth, and, to use his own forcible expression, "nearly knocked him off de hoss." But these were minor evils, and scarcely cost the hunters a thought..