948 Insects. 



first week in July. Like most of our Lepidopterous insects, the caterpillar of this 

 little moth is the prey of an Ichneumon, the female of which is apterous, but the male 

 winged ; I send you a specimen of the latter sex : when the Ichneumon is ready to 

 emerge, it makes a hole at the base of the case, through which it effects its escape. — 

 Richard Weaver; 63, Pershore-street„ Birmingham. 



[I have ventured on adding the name of the plant to which the specimens are still 

 attached, and also on making a few alterations in this most interesting communication. 

 Edward Neivman."] 



Singular fact related of the House Fly. I hope the following will be worthy of a 

 place in ' The Zoologist.' A few summers ago, while idly looking out of a window, 

 my eye was caught by a small drop of a viscous but pellucid fluid on the trunk or 

 proboscis of a common fly, which was resting on the window pane. On watching him 

 more closely, I found that the drop gradually but steadily increased in size, till it 

 grew (I speak from recollection), considerably larger than the fly's head. So it con- 

 tinued for some sixty or seventy seconds, after which it again gradually diminished, 

 till the whole was absorbed. All this time he continued perfectly tranquil, and appa- 

 rently in a state of great enjoyment, without any of the toilette operations of brushing 

 and cleaning the legs, which take up so much of a fly's leisure. I have been fortu- 

 nate enough to witness the whole process of the formation and subsequent absorption 

 of the drop two or three times, and, I need not say, have speculated on it not a little. 

 Sometimes I have thought that, as this insect lives principally by suction, the contents 

 of its stomach must be fluid, and that the operation I have described was a bringing 

 up again of its liquid food, analogous to " chewing the cud" among quadrupeds. If, 

 however, this is the true solution, and flies are really in the habit of eating the same 

 meal twice, it appears unaccountable to me that the fact should not have fallen under 

 the notice of naturalists long before this, unless, as I have sometimes suspected, it 

 only takes place when flies are unwell, and so may be considered a kind of sickness or 

 vomiting. Sometimes, again, it has occurred to me, that what looked so much like a 

 drop of fluid, might not really be one after all, but was possibly a bubble or inflated 

 film of fluid, which the fly might be supposed capable of producing. This, I am 

 inclined to think, would have a very similar appearance to that described, at least to 

 the eye of a not very accurate observer. I should be very glad if this slight notice of 

 a fact which appears to have been hitherto unrecorded, if not unnoticed, should lead 

 some of the readers of ' The Zoologist' to study more closely the habits of the fly. 

 Should it do so, I hope I may be allowed to point out one or two things to which they 

 would do well specially to direct their attention. First, the manner in which the light 

 is reflected by the drop ; next, the apparent health of the fly at the time ; thirdly, the 

 frequency and times of recurrence of the phenomenon in the same insect, if possible. 

 It would be desirable, too, to obtain and analyse the fluid (if it be one), and to mark 

 the effect its abstraction has upon the fly. The great difficulty, however, would be to 

 catch the fly in the act ; and for this purpose it appears to me that a sort of muscarium 

 or fly-hive would be a valuable help. I feel in some perplexity as to what would be 

 the best method of constructing such a thing, and should feel obliged by hints or 

 advice on the subject, in the pages of this Magazine. It ought to be so arranged as 

 to admit, at least in part, of the principle of solitary confinement being adopted, and 

 the different prisoners ought to be differently dieted, by which means I think we 

 might learn many little instructive particulars about a fly's " private life," in addition 



