PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 24, NO. 7-8, OCT. -NOV., 1922 183 



"The breeze upon her, Ijke a cow in June 

 Hoists sails and flies." 



Antony and Cleopatra. 



This refers beyond a doubt to the well-known habit of cattle in 

 stampeding at the approach of the warble-flies. The biting 

 flies of the Muscoidea are referred to by the earliest of British 

 poets and probably Spenser had Haematobia or that curse, 

 Stomoxys calcitrant, in mind in the following passage: 



"How many flies, in hottest summer's day 

 Do seize upon some beast whose flesh is bare, 

 That all the place with swarms do overlay 

 And with their little stings right felly fare." 



Faerie Queen. 



The Calliphorinae of the Muscoidea are freely referred to by the 

 British poets usually as the blow-fly, the commonest species of 

 which in Europe is Calliphora erythrocephala Meig. Perhaps 

 this species isjresponsible for Chaucer's remarks in the Canter- 

 bury Tales: 



"Of many a pilgrim hastow Cristes curs 

 For of they parsly yet they farethe wors 

 That they han eten with they stubbel-goos; 

 For in thy shoppe is many a fly loos. " 



The Cook's Tale. 



And Shakespeare's: 



"I would not so! and would no more endure 

 This wooden slavery than to sufTer 



The flesh-fly blow my mouth." 



The Tempest. 



A certain type of morbid, melancholy poet seems to be singu- 

 larly attracted by the insect fauna of the mortuary, and refuses 

 to profit by the salutary advice contained in the negro folk 

 song which warns us to 



" Keep away from the grave yard, it's nasty old place, 

 Where dey lay yo on yo' back an' shovel dirt on yo' face." 



These poets, of whom Shelley is an excellent example, refer 

 copiously to the worm of the grave; for instance: 



"We decay 



Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief 

 Convulse us and consume us day by day, 

 And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. " 



Adonais. 



in fact, his are the most maggoty and worm-eaten verses in the 

 language. 



In view of the investigations of Doctor Murray G. Matter, 

 all such passages may unhesitatingly be referred to the Diptera, 



