228 THE WOODLANDS. 



Baalzebub was represented was the Dung Beetle, or 

 Scarabeus, already referred to. 



Many instances are on record of flies making their 

 appearance in immense numbers, and also of the 

 popular belief that their coming was a presage of 

 evil. "In the summer of 1834, which season was- 

 remarkable in England for its swarms and shoals of 

 insects, the air was constantly filled/ 7 says a writer in 

 the "Mirror," "with millions of small, delicate flies; 

 and the sea, in many places, particularly on the Nor- 

 folk coasts, was perfectly blackened by the amazing 

 shoals. The length of these masses was not ascer- 

 tained, but they were, it is asserted, at least a league 

 broad." 



There is a much older record of a similar occur- 

 rence given by Southey : "In 1699, at Kerton, in 

 Lincolnshire, the sky seemed to darken north-west- 

 ward at a little distance from the town, as though it 

 had been a shower of hailstones or snow ; but when 

 it came near the town it appeared to be a prodigious 

 swarm of flies, which went with such a force toward 

 the south-east, that persons were forced to turn their 

 backs of them." 



Amongst the games and plays of the ancient 

 Greeks was one called the Brazen Fly, a kind of 

 Blind Man's Buff, in which a boy, having his eyes 

 bound with a fillet, went groping round, calling out, 

 " I am seeking the Brazen Fly." His companions 

 replied, " You may seek, but you will not find it," at 

 the same time striking him with cords made of the 

 inner bark of the papyrus, and thus they proceeded 

 till one of them was taken. 



