On Jun 29, 1:51*pm, Emery Davis wrote:

The horse flies are intolerable this year, not quite sure why. *Maybe
the unseasonable heat, I always thought they liked standing water and
there isn't much of that around.

Back in 1957 I was sent to an army cadet camp in Buckingham Tofts in
Norfolk. On the first day we were sent out on an exercise and we all
got severely bitten by horse flies, some even had to be shipped out to
the nearest hospital. A sergeant had decided insect repellant would
not be issued on the first day to "toughen us up". We got it on the
second day - it was foul smelling stuff in a metal bottle and it
worked, so it is possible to repel the horse flies. Unfortunately
there was no name on the bottle, but it was so effective that I have
not been bitten by a horse fly in the ensuing fifty years!