214 THE WORLD'S LUMBER ROOM. 



or vegetable. Flies are the first to attack any dead body 

 which may be left exposed, and, by perforating it in all 

 directions, they open and prepare the way for the host of 

 beetles which follow them. 



Linnaeus, the great naturalist, declared that three flies 

 were equal to a lion as regards the length of time they 

 would take to demolish the carcase of a horse ; and this 

 will not seem by any means impossible when we learn that 

 each flesh-fly produces 16,000 to 20,000 maggots, which are 

 hatched in her body, and are therefore ready to begin feed- 

 ing at once, which they do so voraciously that in many 

 species they increase their weight two-hundredfold in 

 twenty-four hours. 



The larval state of all insects, whether butterflies, moths, 

 beetles, flies, &c., is the grand feeding-time, when, indeed, 

 the grub, maggot, or caterpillar, does nothing but eat, and as 

 soon as it is " full fed " prepares at once to enter on the next 

 stage of its existence. 



Flies do not wait for decomposition to set in before 

 coming to feed and deposit their eggs or young ; or rather, 

 perhaps, since decay actually begins as soon as life ceases, 

 we should say that their senses are keener than ours in 

 detecting it. A mouse has been known to be full of their 

 maggots two or three hours after death ; and every butcher 

 knows to his cost how attractive his meat is, even when 

 freshly killed. Human beings endowed with the ordinary 

 sense of smell are able, it is said, to detect the three hundred 

 millionth part of a grain of musk ; but insects require a very 

 much smaller degree of odour to guide them to their food. 

 Thus it has been noticed in Ceylon that, in a few moments, 



