known as Pcdipalpi, in the books: queer little 

 creatures that live in dusty nooks, among old 

 books and papers, and feed on tiny mites and 

 other minute life which harbor them, but born 

 rovers withal, with a singular fancy for fly - toes 

 and free rides. 



But the false scorpion may be considered rather 

 as a bother than a serious trouble to the fly. His 

 real troubles are too numerous to mention. His 

 life, as most of my readers will be glad to learn, 

 is not a bed of roses, as is commonly supposed. 

 Just think for a moment what a fly's existence 

 must be. With the deadly fly-paper on the one 

 hand, the continual danger of being cemented 

 into a pellet of pulp in the maw of a hornet, or 

 impaled on the beak of his murderous relative 

 the " Laphria-fly," or snapped up by birds, toads, 

 snakes, he certainly has abundant use for that 

 head full of eyes of his. All summer long he 



