204 EEPUTED POISONOUS FLT OF NEW CALEDONIA, 



was sentenced to some weeks imprisonment." -•' ''•' '^' ^" * 

 '* It was with great difficulty," Mr. Laj^ard adds, "that the 

 liberation of this unfortunate man was effected." '•' '^' '^ 

 He goes on to say, '* But to return, what was the fly that caused 

 all this panic, trouble, and death ? No one could tell me with 

 certainty, but the majority of my evidence pointed to a common 

 house fly {Musca). 



" One day sitting in my verandah reading, I was suddenly 

 stung with such violence in the hand, that I dropt my book, and 

 sprang from my seat with the agonj'. '^'' ••' ^'' And I was for 

 the moment horror struck at perceiving that my assailant was 

 apparently a common house fly. The *' Mouche Charbonneuse " 

 I thought, at last, and I remembered with dismay the bodies of 

 certain birds I had skinned and then hurled into the bushes- 

 There was a bleeding puncture in my hand, which I applied to 

 my mouth and sucked with as fervent a zepJ as did Queen EleanOp 

 the poisoned wound of her husband King Edward. I watched 

 my wound for some days anxiously, but no evil came of it. A 

 second time I was stung, and there was no mistaking the fiery 

 pain of the puncture. I tried to catch the stabber, but failed, 

 though the opportunity gave me time to observe the fly. It was 

 generally like a house fly, but I knew it could not be one, as no 

 fly's sucker could thus pierce the skin. 



*' A third time I felt the stab, it was now on my foot, and 

 through my stocking. As I had come off scot-free from poison 

 twice, I let mine enemy drive his dagger in without flinching, 

 while my son, to whom I had called, brought me the butterfly net, 

 and I soon had the villian in my toils. 1 send him to you, by 

 the hands of my son, in a glass tube, hoping that some of our 

 members may be able to tell us what he is." 



The fly is a Stomoxijs, an insect not uncommon in this country, 

 and very probably introduced as Mr. Layard suggests into New 

 Caledonia and the Isle of Pines from Australia, as the maggot of 



