Flies : " The Hosts of Achor." 227 



Nor do the sheep fare much better, " what time the new- 

 shorn flock stand here and there, With huddled head, im- 

 patient of the fly." For the shearers are just then at work, 

 and 



" The fretful ewe that moans an equal share, 

 Tormented with flies, her head she hides, 

 Or angry brushes from her new-shorn sides," 



is a welcome touch of summer, which the poets gratefully 

 acknowledge by frequent use. 



" Fell CEstrus buries in her rapid course 

 Her countless broods in stag, or bull, or horse ; 

 Whose hungry larva eats its living way, 

 Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day." Darwin. 



The horse, too, with cruelly cropped tail, commands the 

 sympathy that is due. 



" By the unclouded sun are hourly bred 

 The bold assailants that surround thy head, 

 Poor patient Ball ! and, with insulting wing, 

 Roar in thine ears, and dart the piercing sting. 



In thy behalf the crest-waved boughs avail 

 More than thy short-clipt remnant of a tail, 

 A moving mockery, a useless name, 

 A living proof of cruelty and shame. 

 Shame to the man, whatever name he bore, 

 Who took from thee what man can ne'er restore ; 

 Thy weapon of defence, thy chiefest good, 

 When swarming flies contending suck thy blood." 



Why are flies so unpopular? That everybody dislikes 

 them everybody knows. Luther hated them, and mas- 

 sacred them without mercy. He said they were " emissaries 

 of Diabolus, and the ghosts of heretics," because whenever 

 he was reading a pious book they paraded about upon it to 

 distract his attention, and soiled it. Long before Luther's 

 time, however, they were specially affiliated upon Beelzebub, 

 the patriarch prince of bluebottles. The monks abominated 

 them, and said they were immoral. Religious legends of 

 the Talmud are to the discredit of the dipterous vagabond. 



