CHAPTER XIX 



A DANGEROUS NEIGHBOR 



IT is not among lions and tigers, reptiles or 

 snakes, save possibly the Indian cobra, 

 that we have to look for man's most 

 destructive animal enemy. These mostly 

 stay at home and mind their business. And 

 if an unwary man now and then suffers from 

 them, it is an even chance that it is his own 

 fault. 



But the house-fly for with him this chapter 

 chiefly deals wanders about, and gets its 

 objectionable person onto or into almost 

 everything. It breeds chiefly in manure and 

 garbage heaps. It revels in almost all those 

 things which to the normal modern man 

 seem dirty, filthy, and disgusting. Then it 

 wanders over the food and persons of men, 



211 



