76 HUMBLE CREATURES. 



it for yourfelf. See what myriads of maggots are 

 writhing throughout its frame ! A few hundreds of 

 these may be the larvse of the Carrion Beetle, or of 

 the DeviFs Coachman {Staphylinid(B) ; but thousands 

 upon thousands are the maggots of flies, and, if you 

 return a few days after your first inspection, you will 

 find that they have devoured the whole carcase, save 

 a little skin, and the indigestible bones. The ele- 

 ments of the tissues, instead of decomposing into 

 poisonous and ill-savoured compounds, and filling the 

 air with miasma pregnant with pestilential disease 

 and death, at once spring phcenix-like into life again, 

 and in a few days there appears the animated form of 

 the Fly, which only an Omnipotent hand could have 

 moulded with such rapidity and accurate design. 

 That which was left of the carcase, the bones, form 

 one of the most valuable manures that we possess; 

 and whilst the elements of the flesh and tissues rise, 

 to form a living creature of the air, the bones descend 

 into the earth, and there enter into the constitution 

 of plants, and provide nourishment for other animated 

 beings. The Fly in its turn falls a victim to birds, 

 frogs, or rapacious insects, and these in like manner 

 become the prey of man and the lower animals, or 

 are converted into the constituents of the soil ; and 

 thus it is that the current of life flows on in constant 

 and ever- varying circles. 



The history of the Fly also leads our thoughts 

 back into the obscure past, even to the earliest periods 

 of Creation, and here again it testifies to the wisdom 



