Flies : ' ' The Hosts of A ckor" 2 3 1 



Student of Santillane, accepts the most appalling disasters of 

 existence with the indifference of Sinbad, and treats bodily 

 peril with the lofty scorn of Don Quixote. 



The fly in fact is an expert in the evasion of sudden 

 death. It is assailed by the equivalents of thunder and 

 lightning, of cannon-fire and volcanic explosion, but escapes 

 them all. Dynamite is sprung upon it without avail. It 

 laughs to scorn the shaking of the spear. Honest hostility 

 in fact is of no use. It would not care in the least for all 

 the king's horses and all the king's men. But against 

 treachery what courage is of avail ? Beset by the blandish- 

 ments of a false friendship, what heroism can be proof? 

 So the fly finds its end multitudinously in poisoned treacle, 

 and the insect that would have braved, if necessary, the 

 thunders of Assaye, falls a victim to the sticky insidiousness 

 of the catch-em-alive-ohs. Whether this is as it should be 

 is for the judgment of each individual. 



But besides K the fly " ordinary, there are other species 

 which the poets mix up with the domestic insects. Thus 

 the "bluebottle" becomes the gad-fly when we find it 

 " having tormented man, urge unsatisfied its course to tor- 

 ment the beast." As a matter of fact 



"All the race of silver-winged flies 

 Which do possess the empire of the air " 



are lumped together which perhaps is no more than is 

 justifiable, for after all, if poets became entomological, verse 

 would suffer. Still it is not justice, not even courtesy, to 

 nature. 



The gad-fly, however, has a very distinct individuality. 

 It is "fell CEstrus;" "the maddening fly," "the humming 

 gad-fly," which (like the critic and* author) "imprints its 

 malicious comments on the tender flank." In summer it 

 is of course supreme in bovicultural verse : 



