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414 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
{(labium,) is most curious. When the fly settles upona lump of 
sugar or other sweet object, it unbends its tongue, extends it, and 
the broad knob-like end divides into two broad, flat, muscular leaves 
which thus present a sucker-like surface, with which the fly laps 
up the liquid sweets. These two leaves are supported upon a 
frame-work of tracheal tubes; these modified tracheze end in 
hairs projecting externally. Thus the inside of this broad, fleshy 
expansion is rough like a rasp, and, as Newport states, 
“is easily employed by the insect in scraping or tearing delicate 
surfaces.” It is by means of this curious structure that the busy 
house-fly occasions much mischief to the covers of our books by 
scraping off the albuminous polish and leaving tracings of its 
depredations in the soiled and spotted appearance which it occasions 
onthem, Itis by meansof thesealso that it teases us in the heat of 
summer, when it alights on the hand or face to sip the perspiration 
that exudes from and is condensed upon the skin. The microscope 
reveals wonders quite unexpected in such a common insect as the 
house-fly, but it would take too much time to describe them now 
and in detail. 
The very fact that flies run over our skin in search of liquid food 
is sometimes the cause of diseases. Bad ulcers, caused by some 
contagious diseases, are visited by flies whenever they have an op- 
portunity todo so. Being a hairy insect,and having upon their 
feet sucking pads, bacteria found in such sores must adhere, and, if 
another person is visited in turn,such disease spores will be carried 
to his skin, and should conditions be favorable the germ of disease 
thus brought there will not beslow to act. [had an opportunity some 
years ago to study the eggsof atapeworm. Theseeggs were counted 
and covered with a watch glass. A piece of freshly cut beef was put 
in another part of the same, the watch glass was removed to give 
the houseflies access to the eggs, and soon afterwards some of them 
were detected upon the flesh, showing that even larger objects could 
be carried about by these insects. 
During the months of October and November—never in December, 
but mainly during the early part of November—itis a very common 
occurrence to find the house-fly dead,adhering to walls, window 
panes and other poor conductors of heat, firmly fixed by its probos- 
cis,and withthe legs spread out in quite an unnatural manner, 
thus differing from dead flies in general, which have the legs con- 
tracted. In about 24 hours after death a kind of fatty supstance of a 
white color is found in the form of a ring projecting out between 
each of the rings of the abdomen,andina day or two after the whole 
will be found dried and the surface of the wall or glass lightly cov- 
ered in a semi-circle, at about 4to1 inch from the fly’s abdomen, 
with a cloud of whitish powder. This whitish, fatty substance is 
found on examination to consist of a vast number of short, erect fil- 
aments growing out from the interior of the body of the fly, between 
the rings. These filaments contain large oil globules, often arranged 
inarow,and their having been mistaken for spores gave origin to the 
name of Sporendonema, applied to this fungus. Mr. Cohn has de- 
scribed its growth somewhat minutely and changed the generic 
ha” 
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