36 USES OF FLIES. 



than her supposing, with the little self-important busy-body 

 of La Fontaine's fable, "qu'elle fait alter la machine," not 

 merely that lumbering" machine, in the days of { le grand 

 monarque,' y'clept a coach, but la machine du monde ; to the 

 progress of which she might well imagine her own march 

 and the march of flies in general, to be necessary or mainly 

 instrumental. How could flies think otherwise did they but 

 know that their own mode of progression, their own method 

 of walking against gravity, has been made a subject of most 

 grave discussion and profound inquiry amongst the Scientific 

 of Society. Of this more anon, but in very grave reality, and 

 as we have already slightly noticed, the agency of Flies is much 

 more powerful and important than most people think for, in 

 assisting the progressive economy of our world of nature. Its 

 "wheels within wheels" of natural machinery, which would 

 otherwise be getting forever clogged and impeded, even to 

 mortal stagnation, by impurities of every desciption, are pre- 

 served in great measure comparatively clean and in good 

 working order by the labours of the Fly, which, like those of 

 numerous other minor agents, performed for their own little 

 ends, are made by the Grand Mover of all things conducive to 

 a grand use. " The Fly's purpose in nature," says a modern 

 author,* " is to consume various substances which are given 

 out by the human body, by articles of food, and almost every 

 animal and vegetable production when in a state of change, 



* Mudie. 



