CHAPTER XIX 

 The Proboscis of the Blow-Fly 



EVERY one using a microscope is familiar with 

 this astounding object (fig. 56). It is a 

 common practice to magnify this object right up to 

 several feet in diameter, and still the more it is 

 enlarged the more perfect it becomes. 



Any object in Nature will stand enlargement and 

 still show regularity, but there is scarcely any pre- 

 pared slide in existence that equals this one. We 

 enlarge the object some few hundred diameters, and 

 we see parts that were quite invisible before, now 

 standing out splendidly ; but as we still proceed to 

 enlarge it the tubes begin to attract our attention. 

 We find they are not closed in, like an ordinary tube 

 or pipe of india-rubber or lead. The tubes are open 

 along their length, and the two edges of each are 

 beautifully scalloped and fringed. As a lantern slide, 

 when the image is enlarged on a screen 20 feet in 

 diameter, the proboscis still bears the closest inspec- 

 tion, and is always greeted with rounds of applause. 

 No locomotive engine has ever been constructed that 

 is half so wonderful as the proboscis of the blow-fly. 



203 



