JANUARY 15, 1916 



!■«-' \ OUR HOMES 



Editor 



The land was corrupted by reason of the swarm 

 of flies. — Exodus 8:24. 



CREATION ; HOW MUCH OP- IT IS STILL GOING 

 ON? 



Ever since Gleanings was started ihere 

 has been more or less speculation in I'egard 

 to the lioneybee. Were they oris^inally 

 made just as they are now, or have there 

 been changes ? Let me digress a little. 



1 suppose every one of our readers has 

 been annoyed more or less by the common 

 iiousefly. When you are especially busy, 

 perhaps writing, a mischievous fly will 

 alight on your hand or perhaps on your 

 nose. You impatiently brush him away, 

 but he comes right back and then you have 

 the same thing enacted oter and over again 

 until you lose your patience and make up 

 your mind to kill that particular fly if you 

 can, so as to have a little peace. May be 

 you are running an automobile, or having 

 something to do with it. Perhaj^s you are 

 stopped in the road away from home some- 

 where. You are obliged to pull a complicated 

 machine ajiart more or less. It may be a hot 

 day, the sweat dropping from the end of 

 3'our nose as you stoop over to twist your- 

 self into a tiresome attitude to get at a de- 

 fective point. Just at the critical moment a 

 fly gets close to j-our eye. With greasy fin- 

 gers you try to diive it away; but it per- 

 sists in coming back. Tt would seem that 

 flies do this just to be contrary and because 

 they delight in pestering anybody at a time 

 when he especially does not want to be 

 annoyed by a fly or anything else. We have 

 all heard people talk about "saucy flies;" 

 and they really do seem to enjoy bothering 

 one when they find out they can do so. 

 Now, may be I am uncharitable in regard to 

 flies; but I have not got through yet. They 

 seem to have learned just how far they can 

 go and not get hurt. If you attempt to 

 strike them, unless you are very quick, and 

 circumstances are favorable, a bright frolic- 

 some fly will laugh at your clum=y effort. 

 How does it know, or how does it learn to 

 escape almost any blow you can give it v>?ith 

 your hand? It cannot have had a vei-y long 

 time to learn by experience. In fact, I am 

 not sure but the fly would behave much the 

 same way the very day it learns to use its 

 vdng-s. Tt is not liuman beings alone that 

 it annoys. Every fai-mer knows how flies 

 at certain times of the year } tester his 

 horses and cattle. Of course the horse and 

 cow can brush the fly away with their bushy 

 tail, and they can bite too; but I think the 

 fly dodges and escapes. Now to my point : 



For a few summers past, not only the 

 city but the town and country have been 

 waging war on flies; and the number has 

 decreased, I think, everywhere most percep- 

 tibly. Some irn'entive genius, I do not know 

 Avho or where, lias given us the little " fly- 

 flipper," and I have several times thanked 

 God for it, and for the good man (or 

 woman) who invented it. By the way, it 

 occurs to me that sometliing was said in 

 the bee-journals years ago about a wire- 

 cloth i"iaddle instead of a wooden paddle to 

 knock down an angry bee that keeps fol- 

 lowing one all over the premises. Can any 

 of the veterans tell us anything about it? 

 Over in our home (and it does not matter 

 whether the home is in Medina or Florida) 

 it is a rare thing to see a fly buzzing any- 

 where in our well-screened rooms. Mrs. 

 Root has the credit for that, at least most- 

 ly. Well, at my table in our big office, flies 

 trouble me so much when working on my 

 correspondence that I have been obliged to 

 use sticky fly-paper. This also has been a 

 great boon to humanity. But this summer 

 I have not used any sticky fly-paper at all. 

 I have a very light neat fly-flipper; and 

 now if a fly ventures to get on my hand or 

 face or bald head, I hit it a clip. At first 

 the fly begins liis old antics of dodging and 

 then coming back, but when I get hold of 

 the flipper I " get him." At the first clip 

 the fly seems greatly surprised and aston- 

 ished. I think I have acquired some skill 

 — yes, skill even in my old age, in killing 

 flies just as they approach my table. A 

 vei\y little clip lays a fly out. It takes some 

 time, I admit ; but when I an; busy reading 

 letters a little exercise does me good. I 

 have got so I can swat a fly every time, 

 even before it gets to work at its old antics, 

 because it does not consider that I now have 

 a new invention to circumvent it. The 

 dodging scheme that he has used, and ac- 

 quired such skill and proficiency in using, 

 is now knocked out, and the fly cannot un- 

 understand it. Now for my point : 



How many years or centuries has the fly 

 been in learning to dodge a human hand? 

 And while I am about it I might as well 

 ask how many years and even centuries lias 

 it taken the bee to learn the trade of mak- 

 ing the beautiful honeycomb? And will the 

 fly eventually learn to dodge the fly-flipper 

 as it has heretofore dodged the human 

 hand? 



Bo not plants as well as insects modify 

 their habits by what we may call ages of 

 experience? 



