In Lesser Living Creatures, Thomas Moffet is describing the effect of buprestis (variously identified as an berb, a fly, and a spider) on cattle. According to ancients (Nicander among them) “If an Horse or an Oxe eat one of these flies, presently he swels, growes mad, and shortly after bursteth and dieth” (1002). Moffat renames it "burncow" or "burstcow." Other contemporary references include the French physicians Charles Estienne and Jean Lirbault, whose pan-European text Maison rustique, or The countrey farmer was translated into English by Richard Surflet in 1616. They write: "The small beast abiding in the grasse, called of the Latines Buprestis, and resembling in soee sort the beast which the French men call Fouillemerde, if it be eaten of Oxen, Kine, or Horse, as they feed in the meadowes, it so swelleth them as that they burst and die, as we haue obserued in many, in the yere past 1572.” Could this just be bloat, or is something more specific? Many thanks.