IN THE SEALED TIN. 
OME, we are told, come into the world 
with silver spoons in their mouths. It 
must, however, be rare for any one to make 
his first bow in this life in the inside of a 
patent-food tin. Nevertheless, that is what 
happened to the bluebottle fly. 
Now, there are flies and flies; some large, 
some small, some green, some blue— bottle,’ 
they call them—some coloured like a draught- 
board. These last are the most horrible of all. 
Our precise friend was a bluebottle, and I 
suppose his mother, being hard up for a place 
wherein to deposit her eggs near food for her 
babies, had, in a fit of desperation, chosen the 
patent food in the making. 
Our fly’s first appearance was in the dark 
of the sealed tin. This was a good job, for 
she was a tiny, white, and entirely horrible 
fat grub, all body and a mouth. With the 
former she burrowed about among the patent 
food ; with the latter she ate it. 
Moreover, it is to be feared she was not a 
good advertisement for the patent food, for 
when the busy housewife who bought the tin 
from the grocer’s opened it, she gave a little 
shriek, clapped on the lid, and put the tin 
