36 USES OF FLIES. 



than her supposing, with the little self-important busy-body of 

 La Fontaine's fable, "qu'ette fait aller la machine" not 

 merely that lumbering machine, in the days of f le grand 

 monarque/ /clept a coach, but la machine du monde; to 

 the progress of which she might well imagine her own march 

 and the march of flies in general, to be necessary or mainly 

 instrumental. How could flics think otherwise did they but 

 know that their own mode of progression, their own method 

 of walking against gravity, has been made a subject of most 

 grave discussion and profound enquiry amongst the Scientific of 

 Society. Of this more anon, but in very grave reality, and as 

 we have already slightly noticed, the agency of Flies is much 

 more powerful and important than most people think for, in 

 assisting the progressive economy of our world of nature, Its 

 " wheels within wheels " of natural machinery, which would 

 otherwise be getting for ever clogged and impeded, even to 

 mortal stagnation, by impurities of every description, are pre- 

 served in great measure comparatively clean and in good 

 working order by the labours of the Fly, which, like those of 

 numerous other minor agents, performed for their own little 

 ends, are made by the Grand Mover of all things conducive to 

 a grand use. "The Fly's purpose in nature," says a modern 

 author,"* " is to consume various substances which are given out 

 by the human body, by articles of food, and almost every 

 animal and vegetable production when in a state of change, 



* Mudie. 



