THE BOOK OF THE FLY 



CHAPTER I 



THE HOUSE-FLY, A PRODUCT OF HUMAN 

 INSANITATION 



With the present clay zeal for popularising interest 

 in common things (called nature study) there has 

 arisen the demand for knowledge practically useful 

 and thoroughly up-to-date, yet in a form free from 

 much of the technical terminology and treatment 

 which are essential in the student's more fully 

 developed scientific handbook. 



The " House-fly" is a fit subject for a simplified 

 study of this kind, and the present booklet is an 

 attempt to afford information very different to that 

 of the "popular" works, which only were accessible 

 to the writer's hands between fifty and sixty years 

 ago ; the writers of those old books all followed the 

 lead of the reverend and learned contributors to the 

 famous and monumental "Bridgwater Treatises." "The 

 Wonders of Nature explained," "Humble Creatures" 

 (a study of the earth-worm and the house-fly, in 

 popularised language), "The Treasury of Knowledge," 



