34 WHITHER FLIES GO. 



the season, of whither flies go on the arrival of winter, it 

 still remains, we believe, a problem not yet completely solved 

 even by naturalists, who have maintained opinions on the matter 

 nearly as different as on the hybernation of swallows. A great 

 proportion, no doubt, perish from cold or the many accidents 

 to which their weakness and growing torpor render them, as 

 the year declines, more and more exposed. Yet how few 

 comparatively of the swarms so agile, head downwards on 

 the ceiling, do we ever perceive (or our house-maids either), 

 stiff and stark, legs upwards on the floor. That Fly survivors 

 there are, laid up snugly in secret hybernacula, is further 

 evidenced by the few which are often seen emerging from 

 nobody knows where in mild winter weather, also by those 

 more lonely bodies tempted by the warmth of the fire to 

 creep forth even in nipping frost. Under such forlorn circum- 

 stances, a Fly becomes, to us at least, an object of absolute 

 interest; our dislike, amounting almost to antipathy, of 

 the intrusive, buzzing, pilfering, boozing, tickling varlet, one 

 of the dusky legions which "possess" us in the months of 

 August and September, is converted into sympathy for the 

 poor mateless, friendless, shivering, silent creature, lured by 

 deceptive warmth to quit the shelter of his winter asylum. We 

 would make him as welcome, now, to his tiny bit or sup as the 

 red-breast to his crumbs of comfort, and on occasion would 

 even stretch out a willing finger to save him from a flood of 

 milk or a morass of honey. Yet, more, when thus rescued 



