The Life of the Fly 



together and each cased in a sheath. The pa- 

 tient biographer counted the host : it numbers, 

 he tells us, nearly twenty thousand. You are 

 seized with stupefaction at this anatomical 

 fact. 



How does the Grey Fly find the time to 

 settle a family of such dimensions, especially 

 in small packets, as she has just done on my 

 window-sill? What a number of dead Dogs, 

 Moles and Snakes must she not visit before 

 exhausting her womb! Will she find them? 

 Corpses of much size do not abound to that 

 extent in the country. As everything suits 

 her, she will alight on other remains of minor 

 importance. Should the prize be a rich one, 

 she will return to it to-morrow, the day after 

 and later still, over and over again. In the 

 course of the season, by dint of packets of 

 grubs deposited here, there and everywhere, 

 she will perhaps end by housing her entire 

 brood. But then, if all things prosper, what 

 a glut, for there are several families born dur- 

 ing the year! We feel it instinctively: there 

 must be a check to these generative enormities. 



Let us first consider the grub. It is a sturdy 

 maggot, easy to distinguish from the Green- 

 bottle's by its larger girth and especially by 

 the way in which its body terminates behind. 



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