A RAPACIOUS FLY 49 



grasshopper a small dipterous insect and yet I was 

 strangely moved by it. 



The insect was flying rather slowly by me over the 

 heath a thin, yellow-bodied, long-legged creature, a 

 Tipula, about half as big as our familiar crane-fly. 

 Now, as it flew by me about on a level with my 

 thighs, up from the heath at my feet shot out a 

 second insect, about the same size as the first, also 

 a Dipteron, but of another family one of the Asi- 

 lidse, which are rapacious. The Asilus was also very 

 long-legged, and seizing the other with its legs, 

 the two fell together to the ground. Stooping down, 

 I witnessed the struggle. They were locked together, 

 and I saw the attacking insect raise his head 

 and the forepart of his body so as to strike, then 

 plunge his rostrum like a dagger in the soft part of 

 his victim's body. Again and again he raised and 

 buried his weapon in the other, and the other still 

 refused to die or to cease struggling. And this little 

 light and struggle of two flies curiously moved me, 

 and for some time I could not get over the feeling 

 of intense repugnance it excited. This feeling was 

 wholly due to association : the dagger-like weapon 

 and the action of the insect were curiously human- 

 like, and I had seen just such a combat between 

 two men, one fallen and the other on him, raising 

 and striking down with his knife. Had I never 

 witnessed such an incident, the two flies strug- 

 gling, one killing the other, would have produced 



D 



