CORRESPONDENCE AND INFORMATION. 



373 



shed their bodies, as they do their hair 

 and nails. 



When the leaves fall the whole earth 

 is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love 

 to wander and muse over them in their 

 graves. Here are no lying nor vain 

 epitaphs. What though you own no lot 

 at Mount Auburn? Your lot is surely 

 cast somewhere in this vast cemetery, 

 which has been consecrated from of old. 

 You need attend no auction to secure a 



place. There is room enough here. The 

 Loose-strife shall bloom and the Huckle- 

 berry-bird sing over your bones. The 

 woodman and hunter shall be your sex- 

 tons, and the children shall tread upon 

 the borders as much as they will. Let 

 us walk in the cemetery of the leaves,— 

 this is your true Greenwood Cemetery. 

 — lienn David Thoreau in '"Excur- 



sions. 



CYAID 

 THE LENS 



WONDERFUL TOSGUES OF FLIES. 



The tongue of the common fly, often 

 called the proboscis, is a wonderful 

 organ of great interest to the micros- 

 fond of studying the 



copist who is 



FIG. 1. TIP OF BLOW-FLY'S TONGUE. 



little things of nature, and of more 

 than a great interest to the fly itself, 

 for it is by this tongue that the insect 

 gets its living. The form, and often 

 the structure, differs in the different 

 kinds of flies while the general resem- 

 blance remains somewhat similar in 

 all. Fig. i shows the highly magnified 

 tip of the blow-fly's tongue; Fig. 2 

 that of the common house fly, where 

 the entire length of the proboscis is 

 pictured with two "feelers" at the rear, 

 one on each side. Here the general 

 lesembiance in form is readily seen, 

 although to the microscopical anato- 

 mist the differences are nearly as con- 

 spicuous. But in Fig. 3, which shows 

 a part of the drone fly's tongue, while 

 there is some resemblance in structure, 

 l he shape is entirely different from that 

 of the other two. A long list with an 

 album full of pictures might be made 

 of these little parts of a single large 

 group of insects, and would prove of 

 much value for comparison. 



In the flies which do not bite nor 

 pierce, the organ is composed chiefly, 

 as shown in the illustrations of what 

 seem to be nearly parallel rows of 

 tubes, but which, in realitv, are split 

 along their entire length and thus form 



