dogfly

plural dogflies

1. A bloodsucking fly, Stomoxys calcitrans; stablefly.

   Dogflies were pestering the Pensacola beach trade, and beach crews were mobilized to disinfect the clumps of washed-up seaweed in which the dogflies lived.

   1969, Wesley Marx, The Frail Ocean, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, pages 63–64

   2 more examples

   And behoulding a great multitude of the enemies, he wiſhed them no other harme, but only that ſwarmes of gnats and dogflies might be ſent among them, that feeling the ſtinges of thoſe ſmall creatures, they might acknowledg the power of him that aided the Romanes. When this petition was made vnto God, preſently whole cloudes of gnats and dogflies couered the Perſiã army,[…].

   1612, The Ecclesiasticall History of Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus, page 196

   Discussed with Chairman of the Legislative Committee of the Florida Anti-Mosquito Association support of the group for additional funds for the mosquito control program of the State Board of Health and another research laboratory on dogflies.

   1961, Annual Report, State Board of Health, State of Florida, 1961, page 3