292 HOVER-FLY 



resembling the hum of a distant threshing machine. 

 They spend their days in these exercises; it is their 

 happiness — music and motion combined. Incident- 

 ally, it leads to pairing just as our own ball-room 

 exercises often lead to marriage. 



One of the commonest flies in the world, found all 

 over the world, is the hover-fly; the species of its 

 family in this country alone runs into hundreds, 

 consequently it should be familiar to everyone and 

 admired above all flies. Bee-shaped, but brighter 

 in colour, it is often mistaken by the dull myopic 

 vision of those who are not naturalists for a bee or 

 wasp with a sting. It is to a honey-bee at his slow 

 pollen-gathering work as a fairy to a sweating har- 

 vester. So active and swift is it, there is no other 

 creature to compare with it — not the swift itself, 

 nor the humming-bird, swiftest of all birds. It is 

 more like a meteor than any organic thing, or an 

 electron, magnified and vitalised. Of all the myriads 

 of organic forms thrown off like a sparkling dust 

 from the ever-revolving wheel of life, this fly is the 

 most aerial, most spirit-like, so that when it suspends 

 itself motionless in mid-air before your eyes it is 

 like a fly made of air with the sunlight coming 

 through it. It is, in fact, the highest achievement 

 of Nature in this direction, in the fashioning of a 

 living thing so light and volatile that the down of 

 dandelion or floating gossamer threads seem heavy 

 in comparison. 



The whole life of this fly, as a fly, is passed in a 

 perpetual joyous game, or rather dance, with little 



