THE LIVING WORLD. 
tionate members would seem to be a provision for escape from the web of the 
hostile spider ; certain it is, that the loss of one or more legs never seems to 
embarrass him. The asilidce or robber-flies are the most predaceous of the fly 
family; they have scattered them¬ 
selves throughout the world, and 
are so numerous that twenty-five 
hundred species have already 
been classified. The Hessian-fly 
takes his name from the fact that 
his appearance in America was 
simultaneous with the coming 
of the Hessians of the Revolu¬ 
tionary period. These unfortu¬ 
nate soldiers were not, as our 
forefathers supposed, willing hire¬ 
lings, but having been sold by a 
spendthrift king to the British 
monarch, were impressed, though 
in their homes, or in the street, 
and left to fight or die in 
THE MORMOLYCE PHYLLODES- » • • -P 
America ; it is, however, through 
no crime of theirs that our crops have been ravaged by this insect pest. It 
hatches two broods a year, and lays as many as a hundred eggs at a time; these eggs 
are deposited in the grain stalks, so that in addition to the loss from the appetite of 
the larvae, the plant suf¬ 
fers from an obstructed or 
suspended circulation. 
The horsefly is remarka¬ 
ble for its long-sustained 
flights, and though irri¬ 
tating to horses and 
cattle, is less dangerous 
than mosquitoes and 
gnats. The oleander 
hawk-fly ( asilus oleandi- 
eus) passes its larval 
period underground, or 
buried in rotten wood. 
It is very predaceous, and 
though fond of the ole¬ 
ander, is not disinclined 
to prey upon its own spe¬ 
cies. bott fly ox gad¬ 
fly lays its eggs in the 
skin of cattle, or on the 
hair on the knees and 
shoulders of horses, which 
in licking themselves swallow the eggs. The vestrus bovis (cattle-fly) sometimes 
occupies the front and nasal cavities of sheep and oxen; another species burrows 
HERCULES BUG. male and pemale ( Dynastes Hercules ). 
