290 



Marvels of Insect Life, 



Sanitary Officer and Disease-disseminator. 



Amoiit'T Nature's sanitary officers that are best known to the non-entomological 

 public are the two-winged flies, especially those that make frequent calls upon us 

 in our homes. But the public, as a rule, fail to recognize them in the character 

 of officers for the removal of nuisances, insisting that they are themselves a nuisance. 

 Of late years one ver\' prominent member of this staff of sanitary officials has actually 



been accused — and with good 

 reason — of being actively en- 

 gaged in the dissemination of 

 disease germs. This monster — 

 according to recent views of 

 him — is the ubiquitous house- 

 fly.' The charge appears to 

 be well founded, but, though 

 we have no desire to whitewash 

 him, it is right that someone 

 should act the part of " devil's 

 advocate," and point out, with 

 a view to mitigation of penal- 

 ties, that his carrying of noxious 

 germs is not done " of malice 

 afoiethought," and that he 

 would not do so if the said 

 germs were not left carelessly 

 in his way to cling to his feet. 

 \\'e play all sorts of tricks with 

 the laws of Nature, and when 

 trouble comes of it we try to 

 set it right in the wrong wav. 



Here we are now, founding 

 " Kill-that-Fly " leagues and 

 preaching crusades against the 

 Insect when we ought to be 

 clearing away the muck-heaps 

 near our homes in which the 

 flies are nurtured. Nearly 

 every man who owns a bit of 

 garden-ground is so impressed with the necessity for feeding up his plants w ith stabk> 

 manure that he has a heap handy for the purpose and a smaller heap at the roots 

 of every rose-bush. In some cases he has applied it so continuously that the surface 

 soil of the whole garden is largeh' composed of it. Then the flies come as Nature's 

 sanitary officers and decide that it must be reduced to an inoffensive condition 

 Every female flv lays about a hundred and twenty eggs upon it, and perhaps repeats 

 the number several times at inter\-als. These hatch in a day or two, and the maggots 



'Miisca domcstica. 



Pholo by] 



Figwort-Beetles and Their Cocoons. 



[H. Bastiii. 



The cocoons arc attached to the fruiting shoots of figwort, and may be distin- 

 guished by the absence of a beak at the upper side. The beetle leaves the 

 cocoon by lifting a distinct lid. One of the beetles is climbing the stem, and 

 two others are present whose exact location the leader may like to disco\'er 

 for himself. 



