836 Marvels of 
Photo by] 
[Fred Bnock. 
A FAIRY FLY 
Caught in the web of a spider and held fast ly 
the globules of viscid fluid with which each thread is 
supplied. 
science—the 
millimetre from head to tail, and the smallest, 
one ninety-fijth of an inch long! ! 
realize what this animated 
made up of. The organs of flight, two upper and 
two lower wings geared or hooked together, as 
perfectly as those of the largest bee or wasp—of 
exquisite 
margins surrounded by a fringe of long hairs, 
giving it the appearance, under certain light, of 
the Universe 
which is thick and coarse, sticks out all round the 
head, and the beard is heavy and undivided. The 
tail is particularly large and bushy. 
PIMA TILES * 
BY FRED ENOCK. 
Fairy Fiiks do not occupy much space, for they 
are the smallest four-winged insects known to 
largest species measuring just a 
Just try to 
atom of an insect is 
form and graceful curve, the outer 
a peacock’s tail spread open; each of these tiny 
organs of flight kept in motion by a powerful 
set of muscles, attached to the inside covering of the thorax, which is divided into plates, artfully 
joined together by the most delicate membrane, so that the Fairy Fly can twist its body in any 
direction. 
The head, too, is full of marvels. 
Simple and compound eyes, double-toothed jaws and tiny 
tongue and those wonderful organs aptly termed “ feelers,” for they are the most sensitive organs in 
the whole fly; those of the male being thread-like, while the female has shorter and broader-jointed 
ones, each terminated by an oval club-shaped joint. 
T red Lnock. 
THE EGGS OF THE FAIRY FLY 
Shown, as they are laid, in the eggs of the Frog-hopper. 
One to four may be deposited in each host-egg, which is itself 
buried in the bark of a reed, (Magnified thirty times.) 
Photo bu) 
The under side is covered with sensory hairs— 
with these it identifies its host-egg, though it 
may be embedded beneath the covering skin 
of a plant-stem. If ever there was a fairy- 
like waist, surely these Fairy Flies have such, 
supporting the abdomen, terminated by its 
wonderful egg-laying apparatus. The latter is 
composed of a number of delicately-barbed 
lancets forming a tube so small and delicate that 
microscopic measurement shows the interna] 
diameter to be but one eight-thousandth of an 
inch!! and through this tube the germ or egg 
is conducted into the host-egg—for greatest of 
all insect marvels, these Fairy Flies lay their 
eggs within the eggs of injurious insects ! ! 
Now the question presents itself: How do 
these Flies find the right host-egg ? Only one 
answer can be given to this, viz., by their 
unceasing perseverance. We _ have only to 
follow theiy example and, in the course of a 
few years, we may possibly find out the life- 
histories of one or two from start to finish. 
