332 



Deus Myiagrus. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



ORDER XIII. DIPTERA. 



now come to the order of Flies, a tribe regarded 

 with much disfavour by those who, not looking beyond 

 the apparent evils which they occasion, are ignorant of 

 their great importance in the economy of nature. 



Not only in the ancient times already spoken of 

 times when a god* was summoned to disperse, as a 

 cause of evil, creatures which were in truth its antidote ; 

 not then only, but even to the present day these most 

 useful little creatures are thought of, spoken of, and 

 treated as an unmixed nuisance. In Greece and Rome 

 two thousand years ago they were looked upon as 

 bringing pestilence ; in England to-day, we hear of the 

 " Cholera Fly," not as a Fly coming with, but as one 



* See Introduction, p. 2, and the figure at the head of this chapter. 



