74 HUMBLE CKEATURES. 



* 



in dying usually draw up the legs, and cross them 

 beneath the body ; but in the case of the disease now 

 under consideration, the dead body is supported upon 

 the outstretched legs, whose feet retain their adhesive 

 property, and by the protruded proboscis, with which 

 the My would seem to be sucking; and by which, 

 even when the feet may happen to be detached, the 

 body is still retained in situ. The dead flies in this 

 condition are always surrounded with a halo, about 

 an inch in diameter, composed of a whitish dust, 

 which upon examination is found to consist of the 

 spores [seeds] of a fitngus. The abdomen is much 

 distended, and the rings composing it are separated 

 from each other, the intervals being occupied by white 

 prominent zones, constituted of a fungoid growth 

 proceeding from the interior of the body. Further 

 examiuation will show that the whole of the contents 

 of the body of the Fly have been consumed by the 

 parasitic growth, and that nothing remains but an 

 empty shell, lined with a thin felt-like layer, com- 

 posed of the slender myceHa of the innumerable fungi. 

 "This disease appears to have been long' noticed, 

 though of course, in the absence of sufficient micro- 

 scopic assistance, its true nature was not at first 

 known. First noticed it would seem by De Geer, in 

 1783, it did not escape the minute eye of the illus- 

 trious Goethe, who gives an accurate description of 

 the phenomena attending it, and especially of the 

 appearance of the white dust between the rings of the 

 body and its dispersion in a wide area around the 



