Flies : " The Hosts of Ac/tor" 2 2 5 



Some feather'd dam, purveying 'mid the boughs, 

 Darts from her perch, and to her plumeless young 

 Bears off the prize." 



That birds should eat flies does not, somehow, affect the 

 poets. The spider is a crafty villain and a murderer, but 

 " the sweet songster " that carries off insects to its " callow 

 young " is only fulfilling a beautiful parental function. This 

 is, of course, in a way as it should be, for if it were not for 

 perjudices poetry would often be but flat stuff; yet it is worth 

 noting in passing. Owls are formally damned as fiendish 

 for singing to their mates at night ; not so nightingales. 

 Storks are complimented on eating frogs, but a wolf must 

 not even look through the fence at mutton. 



Hitherto the fly has figured only in its sadder aspects, as 

 the creature of corruption and an emblem of the corrupt, 

 the tormentor of man, the victim of spiders, the prey of 

 fishes and of birds. But it has its gayer side as the 

 persecutor of cattle and sheep, as what Hiawatha calls 



" The stinging fly, the Alrno," 



but which our poets address as "the breeze." The poets 

 positively revel in this insect. For herds and flocks are 

 especially their delight ; and as it is impossible in summer 

 to contemplate either one or the other without becoming 

 aware of " the breeze " at work among them, the fly is worth 

 whole volumes. 



Both sheep and cattle are of a monotonous sort to watch. 

 Unless outside influences operate, they are a dull lot. It 

 is not often they originate any excitement. Their summum 

 bonum is a complete placidity ; their idea of Elysium broad 

 meadows where some bird of the halcyon kind should brood 

 perpetually. But even on poets such unruffled scenes would 

 pall in time. Even Cowper and Wordsworth were annoyed 

 by the uneventful tranquillity of cow-happiness. So "the 

 breeze " comes as a boon and a blessing. 



p 



