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the name tenax « Habitat in fìmetis, cloacis, aquis putrescen- 

 tibus vix prelo (1) destrueiida larva » (Linné, Syst. Nat. XIF^' 

 edit. p. 984, 1766). Kirby and Spence (voi. IV, p. 189) say: 

 « an inliabitant of muddy pools, it lias occasionally been taken 

 np with tlie water used in paper-making, and, strange to 

 say, according io Linné {Fauna Suecica) resisted without 

 injury tlie immense pressure given to the surrounding pulp; 

 like leather-coat Jack, mentioned by Mr. Bell, {Aìiatomy of 

 Expression in Painting, 170), who, from a similar force of 

 niuscle, could suffer carriages to drive over him, without 

 receiving any injury. » Geoifroy (voi. II, p. 521, 1762) rejDeats 

 the same story: « This larva also occurs in the pulp of rags 

 from which paper is made; when this pulp is beaten for the 

 manufacture of paper, the larva although badly struck by the 

 hammers, is not crushed, but survives and produces a fly. This 

 fact would seem incredible, if it was not afflrmed by the great 

 Naturalist. » 



This tenacity may have been the cause of the success of 

 this liy in the so-called struggle for existence. It has attained 

 an almost uni versai distribution, and the progress of civilization 

 has only increased its opportunities. In ancient times it liad 

 to look out for stray carcasses, civilization offers it its drains, 

 canalizations, cesspools and dung-heaps in which it can wallow 

 in abundance, and perhaps better protected against possible 

 enemies. Different in this from other kinds of insects, which 

 disappear with the culture of the^ land, E. tenax thus gained 

 a new impulse, and spread in new countries with an astounding 

 rapidity; it entered into a kind of commensalism Avith man, 

 like the Musca domestica, Teicliomyza fusca and some other 

 dipterous insects, which are at present hardly found anywhere, 

 except among human habitations, It is very rare now to come 

 across a carcass, and to see E. tenax hovering about it; the 



(1) (Traulation). u Lives in dunglieaps, cesspools, putrescent waters; a roller even 

 will not kill it. " 



IJU'^^^' " 



