96 ANIMALS OF NO IMPORTANCE. 



tion. He next, by means of powerful muscles, suddenly 

 expands his pharynx and creates a vacuum, into which the 

 liquified sugar rushes. The pharynx then closes, forcing 

 the food into the gullet. 



My admiration at this wonderful apparatus is more than 

 outweighed by the knowledge that the fly uses it upon me 

 whenever he has the chance. Then, again, you may -call 

 attention to the structure of the fly's foot, the base of which 

 is provided with a pad or sucker, by means of which he is 

 able to walk quite comfortably on the ceiling. This is un- 

 doubtedly a great gymnastic feat ; but, as before, the fly 

 employs his talents to annoy poor human beings. He uses 

 his suckers to walk over what would otherwise be inacces- 

 sible portions of the human frame. 



The visual organ of the fly is an extraordinary structure. 

 The average fly possesses some 4,000 eyes, or rather each 

 of his eyes is composed of 2,000 facets. It is a disputed 

 point as to whether each of these produces in the brain a 

 separate image, or the whole 2,000 produce but one image. 

 If the former is the case the reader must not imagine that 

 when a fly looks at a spider he sees 4,000 of those animals. 

 Man is blessed with two eyes ; nevertheless, under ordinary 

 circumstances, he only sees an object once over. It is, 

 however, quite possible that a fly, after many draughts at 

 your whisky, may see 4,000 objects where only one exists. 

 This should be enough to make him a teetotaller. But, alas ! 

 so wicked a creature is the fly that no object-lesson would 

 ever reform him. 



Even as the anatomy of the fly is wonderful so is his 

 nature black. Prolonged observation has convinced me 

 that the fly has no single redeeming feature in his character. 

 He is not industrious like the ant or the bee. Flies literally 

 fritter away their time. From the inside of a mosquito net 

 I have watched them by the hour. They do nothing but 

 fly aimlessly about, occasionally knocking up against one 

 another in the most absurd way. Out of doors the fly is 

 still more ridiculous. "It is impossible," writes Hudson 



