The Grey Flesh-Flies 



boiled egg from v/hich I have taken a few bits 

 of white intended for the Greenbottle-maggots. 

 The Grey Fly takes possession of the remains, 

 recks not of their novelty and colonizes them. 

 Everything suits her that falls within the cate- 

 gory of albuminous matters : everything, down 

 to dead Silk-worms; everything, down to a 

 mess of kidney-beans and chick-peas. 



Nevertheless, her preference is for the 

 corpse : furred beast and feathered beast, rep- 

 tile and fish, indifferently. Together with the 

 Greenbottles, she is sedulous in her attendance 

 on my pans. Daily she visits my Snakes, takes 

 note of the condition of each of them, savours 

 them with her proboscis, goes away, comes 

 back, takes her time and at last proceeds to 

 business. Still, it is not here, amid the tumult 

 of callers, that I propose to follow her opera- 

 tions. A lump of butcher's meat laid on the 

 window-sill, in front of my writing-table, will 

 be less offensive to the eye and will facilitate 

 my observations. 



Two Flies of the genus Sarcophaga frequent 

 my slaughter-yard : Sarcophaga carnaria and 

 Sarcophaga hamorrhoidalis, whose abdomen 

 ends in a red speck. The first species, which is 

 a little larger than the second, is more numer- 

 ous and does the best part of the work In the 

 235 



