BIBIO HORTULANUS. 



267 



Transformations of Bibio hortulanm, Meiqen. a, the egg mag- 

 nified ; h, the same when hatched ; c, d, the maggot and pupa 

 magnified; e,f, the same, natural size; g, the fly. 



In the case of the blow-flies, Linnaeus tells us that 

 the larvae of three females of Musca vomitoria will 

 devour the carcase of a horse as quickly as would 

 a lion ; and we are not indisposed to take this 

 literally, when we know that one mother of an allied 

 species (M. carnaria) produces about 20,000, and 

 that they have been proved by Redi to increase in 

 weight two hundred-fold within twenty-four hours. 

 The most extraordinary fact illustrative of the voracity 

 of these maggots which we have met with, is the 

 following, given by Kirby and Spence, from " Bell's 

 Weekly Messenger :" — 



"On Thursday, June 25th, died at Asbornby, 

 Lincolnshire, John Page, a pauper belonging to 

 Silk-Willoughby, under circumstances truly singular. 

 He being of a restless disposition, and not choosing 

 to stay in the parish workhouse, was in the habit of 

 strolling about the neighbouring villages, subsisting on 



