MUSCA DIABOLIC A. 95 



obnoxious when practised on one of these pests. You may 

 say that the fly has not the vile smell of the skunk, the 

 sting of the wasp, or the bite of the mosquito. This is true. 

 One can, however, keep out of the way of skunks, wasps 

 have never troubled me, while a punkah will keep off mos- 

 quitos. The fly cannot be avoided except by turning night 

 into day. And if everyone made up his mind to do this, I 

 have not the least doubt that, such is the villainy of flies, 

 they would with one accord do likewise. A fly laughs at 

 punkahs ; he will settle upon a moving one and smile at 

 you, and then alight upon your face. Flies, like the poor, 

 are always with us. They are more plentiful in the hills 

 than in the plains. They abound in the bazaar and are al- 

 most as numerous in the open country. They are equally 

 at home inside the bungalow and outside it. It is im- 

 possible to keep them out of the house. It is true that a fly 

 cannot penetrate a chik, nor does he try. He knows a trick 

 worth two of that. He elects to sail majestically into the 

 room on the khidmatgar's back. Once inside the fly loses 

 no time in letting you know it. He does not bite or sting 

 his torture is more refined than that he worries. "It 

 is not," wrote Arthur Young, " that they bite, sting, or hurt, 

 but they buzz, tease, and worry ; your mouth, eyes, ears, 

 and nose are full of them ; they swarm on every eatable 

 fruit, sugar, milk, everything is attacked by them in such 

 myriads that, if they are not incessantly driven away by a 

 person who has nothing else to do, to eat a meal is impossi- 

 ble." Arthur Young would seem to have camped in India 

 during the hot weather. 



You may point out the wonderful structure of the fly. 

 What, for instance, could be more marvellous than his 

 mouth-parts ? The fly, like the elephant, has a trunk, but 

 he goes one better than the great pachyderm, for his trunk 

 is telescopic. Yet more, the fly keeps an air-pump in his 

 pharynx. Watch a fly alight upon a piece of sugar. He 

 puts forth his proboscis and disgusting process ejects 

 some saliva on to the sugar, thereby melting a minute por- 



