על חיי משה, ספר א כ״גOn the Life of Moses, Book I 23
א׳
1[130] The three remaining chastisements were self-wrought, without any human agent, each of which I will proceed to describe as well as possible. In the first, a creature is employed whose ferocity is unequalled in all nature—the dog-fly. This name, which the coiners of words in their wisdom have given it, well expresses its character, for it is a compound formed from the two most shameless animals of the land and the air—the dog and the fly. Both these are persistent and fearless in their assaults, and if one attempts to ward them off meet him with a perseverance which refuses to be beaten, until they have got their fill of flesh and blood.
ב׳
2[131] The dog-fly has acquired the audacity of both, and is a creature venomous and vicious, which comes with a whirr from a distance, hurls itself like a javelin, and, with a violent onrush, fastens itself firmly on its victim.
ג׳
3[132] On this occasion the assault was also divinely impelled, so that its viciousness was doubled, prompted by avidity due not only to nature but to divine providence, which armed the creature and roused it to use its force against the population.
ד׳
4[133] After the dog-fly there followed again a chastisement brought about without human co-operation, the death of the live-stock ; for great herds of oxen and sheep and goats, and every kind of beast of burden and other cattle, perished as by a single agreed signal in a single day, whole droves at a time, thus presaging the destruction of men which was about to follow, just as we find in epidemics. For pestilential disorders are said to be preluded by a sudden murrain among the lower animals.