LACE-WINGED FLY. 279 



character) as belongs frequently to others hazel, black, and 

 blue. Their burnish is but gilding, being (like that on the 

 skins of various chrysalides) produced only by an opaque 

 varnish under the cornea."* 



To look at this fairy-like creature with nothing fierce in her 

 exterior, save perhaps the golden fire of her eye, one might 

 naturally suppose that from fruits, or flowers, or foliage, she 

 must derive her slender nutriment that she must have bor- 

 rowed from the sappy leaf her prevailing hue of emerald 

 green from the petals of the rose and hyancinth the evanescent 

 gleams of crimson which mingle with the azure of her filmy 

 wings and from the golden anthers of these, or other blossoms, 

 the golden seeming of her lustrous eyes ; but " fair and fierce *' 

 were then appellatives, which in their compound would ill 

 beseem the pretty "lace -wing ;" whereas, in point of fact, they 

 both equally befit her. 



With all her beauty, and all her seeming gentleness, she 

 bears about her no odour of sweetness on the contrary, an 

 ill-conditioned scent ; and could we but inquire of her character 

 amongst insect nations, especially amongst the tribes of 

 Aphides,f which people the waving foliage, we should find her 

 name, amongst them, in worse odour even than her person. 

 The very story that flocks might bleat about the wolf, or turkeys 

 gabble of the fox, these aphides would certainly relate to us 

 of the lace-winged fly. " She invades," would they declare 



* See Painting, Carving, and Gilding. f See article on Aphides, 



