18 FLY FEEDING. 



teristics. By fair comparison of sizes, what is the swiftness of 

 a race-horse, clearing his mile a minute, to the speed of the Fly 

 cutting through her third of the same distance in the same 

 time 7 1 And what the speed of our steaming giants, the grand 

 puffers of the age, compared with the swiftness of our tiny 

 buzzers, of whom a monster train, scenting their game afar, 

 may even follow partridges and pheasants on the wings 

 of steam in their last flight as friendly offerings ? But 

 however, with their game, the Flies themselves would be most 

 " in keeping" on an atmospheric line, a principal agent in 

 their flight, as well as in that of other Insects, being the air. 

 This enters from the breathing organs of their bodies into the 

 nerves and muscles of their wings ; from which arrangement, 

 their velocity depends, not alone on muscular power, but also 

 on the state of the atmosphere. 



Lastly, how does the Fly feed ? the " busy curious thirsty 

 Fly" that " drinks with me," but does not " drink as I," 

 his sole instrument for eating and drinking being his trunk 

 or sucker, the narrow pipe, by means of which, when let 

 down upon his dainties, he is enabled to imbibe as much as 

 suits his capacity. This trunk might seem an instrument 

 convenient enough when inserted into a saucer of syrup, or 

 applied to the broken surface of an over-ripe blackberry, but 

 we often see our sipper of sweets quite as busy on a solid lump 

 of sugar, which we shall find on close inspection growing 

 " small by degrees" under his attack. How, without grinders, 

 does he accomplish the consumption of such crystal condiment? 

 A magnifier will solve the difficulty, and show how the Fly 

 dissolves his rock, Hannibal fashion, by a diluent, a salivary 

 fluid passing down through the same pipe which returns the 

 sugar melted into syrup. 



The Fly is a perfect Insect (or Imago), having already 

 passed through its two preparatory stages of transformation, 

 those of Larva and Pupa (see vignette), corresponding to what, 



1 Kirby and Spence. 



