312 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Common flesh-fly Large blue bottle flesh-fly. 



It feeds during night, and though seldom to be 

 seen in the day time, it courts the Jight of a can- 

 dle, about which it frequently flutters, till it de- 

 st roys itself. See the plate of insects, fig. 1 and 1 1 . 



FLIES. 



OF these there are various genera, the most 

 particular of which we shall briefly enumerate., 

 and describe. 



The common flesh-fly and the large blue 

 bottle flesh-fly are nearly similar in appear- 

 ance. The former is, however, somewhat more 

 slender, and is besides of a greyish tint, occa- 

 sioned by some irregular rather long stripes 

 on the corcelet running lengthwise, and some 

 still more irregular marks of the same kind on 

 the body; all of them of a cinereous grey, sepa- 

 rated by a shining brown, which, under certain 

 points of view, appear of a blueish tint. The legs 

 of the common flesh-fly are black, the halteres 

 or balancers under its wings are whitish, and its 

 reticular eyes somewhat red. 



The flesh-fly is a viviparous insect, depositing 

 its young in a living state on the meat in our 

 shambles and larders. These young appear un- 

 der the same worm-like form as the grubs pro- 

 duced from the blue flesh-fly: they feed as those 

 do, increase in size, undergo all their transforma- 

 tions in the same manner, and even in the fly 



