CHAPTER V 

 GENERAL LIFE HISTORY 



Whereas the blue-bottle rarely enters the dwellings 

 of mankind, except gravid females led by the sense of 

 smell in search of fish, or flesh meat, and (less eagerly) 

 sweets, both species of house-fly and both sexes seem 

 to delight in the mere odour of humanity; breeding 

 females will seek the larder and the dust- bin, but others 

 will very provokingly pervade all quarters. Although 

 avoiding a dark or deeply shaded room, the house-fly 

 seems to like partial shade ; it will be content to re- 

 main indoors and to rejoice in a warm kitchen, even 

 on a hot summer's day, whilst all the other kinds of 

 flies are enjoying the outdoor sunshine. It may be 

 said of nearly a dozen other species, occasionally ob- 

 servable crawling on window panes, that they are "out- 

 door" flies, and that their occurrence indoors is acci- 

 dental. In fact, they are mostly observed when trying 

 to escape. 



Next after human habitations, stables, cow-sheds and 

 pig-sties are the delight of the breeding female house- 

 fly. Round about and in these latter resorts she 

 associates with an immense host of rather small sized 

 flies, and amongst a few others of equal size with the 

 skin-piercing and blood-sucking stable-fly ; but many 

 stablemen are ignorant of the difference of the two 



