Blowfly

“ A beautiful and far-famed insect—do not mistake, I mean neither the Emperor, nor the King of Sardinia, but a much finer specimen—the fire-fly. Their bright light is evanescent, and alternates with the darkness, as if the swift whirling of the earth struck fire out of the black atmosphere; as if the winds were being set upon that planetary grindstone, and gave out such momentary sparks from their edges. Their silence is more striking than their flashes, for sudden phenomena are almost invariably attended with some noise, but these little jewels dart along the dark as softly as butterflies. ”

“ The light and fragile butterfly, whose glorious garb irradiates the summer zephyr in which it floats, has had its power of flight—which is its power to live—determined by results of that same chain of causes that lifted from the depths the mountain on whose sunny side he floats, that has determined the seasons and the colour of the flower whose nectar he sucks, and that discharges or dissipates the storm above, that may crush the insect and the blossom in which it basked. ”

“ Even the adult butterflies of this species have to be on the lookout for enemies. During the long months of their life many of them probably succumb to the attacks of birds or other creatures. I have seen but one such tragedy. While riding along a country highway with a bird-loving friend one spring day we saw a male Maryland yellow-throat flit by with a Mourning-cloak in his mouth. The bird lit on a fence, from which I startled him so that he dropped the butterfly, a worn and faded, half-dead specimen. The places where the bird held the insect were indicated by missing pieces of the wings. ”

“ This insect, if placed in a glass, and looked at when it is dark, will be found to be considerably luminous. Blumenbach asserts that another luminous insect gives such a strong light, that two of them placed in a glass, gave sufficient light to read by. The fire-flies of hot countries have wings, both male and female; so that when they occur in great quantities, they exhibit a brilliant spectacle to the inhabitants. That pest of farmers, the wire-worm, is, we believe, luminous. ”

“ At the larger end, under which the head of the fly lies, and from which it always issues, there is commonly a sort of lid which can be pushed off like the lid of a box, and the insect can then walk out at pleasure. But in the case of the pupa of the blow-fly this lid is not very easily removed, and the fly, therefore, is furnished with a most ingenious method of thrusting it off. On opening the larger end of such a pupa, if the fly within is ready to come out, a most curious phenomenon will be seen. ”

“ For a whole hour you may not observe a humble-bee, and the wasp-like hover-flies, that are generally past all thought of counting, are scarcely seen. A blue butterfly we found in the dust of the road, without the spirit to fly, and lifted him into a field to let him have a chance of life; a few tortoiseshells, and so on—even the white butterflies are quite uncommon, the whites that used to drift along like snowflakes. Where are they all? Did the snow kill them? Is there any connection between the absence of insects and the absence of swallows? ”

“ As you walk through a wood in summer, you may often see a black and yellow fly hovering in mid-air. If you move, it darts away so swiftly that the eye cannot follow its flight. But if you stop, and remain perfectly still, it will come back again in a moment or two, and hover just as before.
This is a hawk-fly, and it is very useful, for the mother insect always lays her eggs on twigs and leaves which are swarming with aphides. On these insects the grubs feed, so that as soon as they hatch out they find themselves surrounded with prey, and destroy the little insects in great numbers. ”

“ When this insect is alarmed, it has the power of ejecting a peculiar liquid, which, when it comes in contact with the atmosphere, bursts into a sort of pale blue-green flame, followed by a kind of smoke. Sometimes, when a tolerably large stone is lifted, the little explosions will go popping about in a most curious manner. Indeed, they carry reminiscences of school days, when it was a joy to distribute single grains of coarse gunpowder on the bars of the grate, and watch them melt, take fire, explode, and send forth little clouds of smoke. The insect is popularly called the Bombardier-beetle. ”

“ These hunting parties, however, have lost none of their picturesqueness, and the flashing insect has been the theme of many an exquisite poem, such as: "Ah, the cunning fireflies! being chased, they hide themselves in the moonlight!"
Grown-up people, however, go out to see the fireflies with the same ardour with which they indulge in flower-viewing. To the minds of these great Nature-lovers the fireflies resemble dazzling petals of some strange fire-flower or a host of wondering stars that has left the sky to wander upon the earth. ”

“ One of the largest and most rapid flying of the Diptera is the humble-bee fly (Bombylius major, Fig. 6) . In this species the proboscis, which is situated on the anterior portion of the head, is of considerable length, so that the insect can reach the honey even when it is secreted some way down the corolla-tube. The manner in which Bombylius hovers over a flower while extracting the honey closely resembles that already described as characteristic of the moths among the Lepidoptera. ”

“ One species called Bombylii are clad in velvet so delicate that the least touch rubs it off. They are fluffs of down almost as frail as a snowflake, but they can fly with wonderful quickness. See this one, hovering motionless two feet above the ground. Her wings vibrate so rapidly one cannot see the motion at all, and they seem to be in repose. The insect looks as though it were hung at one point in space by some invisible thread. You make a movement, and your Fly has disappeared. ”

“ The butterfly, it will be recognized, is one of the common insects so familiar to all, with strongly veined white wings, bearing three black spots, two on the upper and one on the lower wing, and dark coloring on the corner of the upper wings. The antennæ, as with all butterflies, are clubbed at the extremity—unlike moths', which are tapering—and the large black staring eyes are the optical apparatus, containing, we are told, thousands of lenses, each a perfect, simple eye. ”

“ They assemble in small flocks, climbing rapidly along the rough bark of the pitch-pine, rapping here and there, with their wedgelike beaks, to scare some drowsy insect; inducing it to rush out, to be nipped, or speared, with the barbed tongue, ere half-awake; others, sitting on the topmost branches of the oaks and pines, continually darted off after some fugitive moth or other winged insect, capturing it much in the fashion of the flycatchers. The harsh and discordant voice is made up for in beauty of plumage. ”

“ In a part of a forest was a troop of monkeys who found a firefly one winter evening when they were dreadfully depressed. On examining the insect, they believed it to be fire, so lifted it with care, covered it with dry grass and leaves, thrust forward their arms, sides, stomachs, and chests, scratched themselves, and enjoyed imagining that they were warm. One of the arboreal creatures in particular, being especially chilly, blew repeatedly and with concentrated attention on the firefly. ”

“ The pausing of one of the birds to select some luscious insect from a cluster of flowers seems to be the signal for an onset from one or more of its fellows, when all squeak with greatest animation. One cannot help believing that this is more or less in the nature of play, for it is joined in by both the males and the females, and the one attacked never resents it in the least. Usually it describes a great circle in the air and descends into the center of some other bush, where it sits watching the others and occasionally preening its feathers. ”

“ When this fly attacks an animal, or man, it pierces the skin instantaneously, like the prick of a red-hot needle driven deep into the flesh, at the same time the insect exerts every muscle of its body by buzzing with its wings as it buries the instrument to its greatest depth. ”

“ The drums and tubes of insects' ears are very minute. What would to us be a continuous sound is to them a series of separate blows. We begin to hear blows as continuous sounds when they amount to about thirty a second. The house-fly has about four thousand eye-lenses; the cabbage butterfly, and the dragon-fly, about seventeen thousand; and some species of beetles have twenty-five thousand. We cannot begin to think in what an agitated world the insect lives, thrilling and vibrating to a degree that would drive us insane. ”

“ They lay traps smeared with bird-lime, to catch insects, and persuade them to drown themselves in pitchers which they have made of their leaves, and fill with water; others make themselves, as it were, into living rat-traps, which close with a spring on any insect that settles upon them; others make their flowers into the shape of a certain fly that is a great pillager of honey, so that when the real fly comes it thinks that the flowers are bespoke, and goes on elsewhere. ”

“ It is a common belief that the light of the glow-worm is used as a lamp of love to assist in nocturnal meetings, but there can be little doubt that the insect makes use of its natural brilliancy without any specific intention. It is as natural for the fire-fly to glitter by night as for the colored butterfly to be gaudy by day. ”

“ The dust which comes off on the fingers when one catches a butterfly is composed of these scales. The wings are always large and usually brightly colored, the legs small, and one pair is often inconspicuous. These insects may be seen to take liquid food through a long tubelike organ, called the proboscis, which they keep rolled up under the head when not in use. The young of the butterfly or moth are known as caterpillars and feed on plants by means of a pair of hard jaws. ”

“ When one leaves his place to catch an insect, the others close up the ranks and dress the line, and on returning, wrangle and scold as he may, he needs must take an outside place. Let a bush fire be started, and flocks of wood-swallows whirl and circle along the flanks of the circling smoke, taking flying insects on the wing, or deftly pick "thin, high-elbowed creatures," scuttling up tree-trunks out of the way of the flames. ”

“ They are found in great numbers on the banks of the Missouri, and in the plains through which we have passed above the Wollawollahs.
Most of the insects common to the United States are seen in this country: such as the butterfly, the common housefly, the blowingfly, the horsefly, except one species of it, the gold-coloured earfly, the place of which is supplied by a fly of a brown colour, which attaches itself to the same part of the horse, and is equally troublesome. ”

“ Blow′er, a metal plate put upon the upper part of a fireplace, so as to increase the draught through the fire: a machine for driving a blast of air, as into a furnace; Blow′-fly, or Flesh-fly, an insect of the order Diptera, and of the large family Muscidæ, to which the common house-fly and blue-bottle belong.—p.adj. ”

“ One of the species of night-flies, the most beautiful of all, is a source of much amusement to the ladies. Hanging the cage of glittering insects on their verandahs, they sit and watch the crowd of winged visitors attracted by the fire-fly's light. What brings them there, and why the fire-fly's parlor is filled with suitors as a queen's court with courtiers, let this love story tell. ”

“ In her, the Dung-beetles' guild reveals itself under a very unexpected aspect. We know insects that knead soft loaves; and here are some which, to keep their bread fresh, discover ceramics and become potters, working clay in which they pack the food of the larvæ. Before my housekeeper, before any of us, they knew how, with the aid of a round jar, to keep the provisions from drying during the summer heats. The work of the Bolbites is an ovoid, hardly differing in shape from that of the Copres; but this is where the ingenuity of the American insect shines forth. ”

“ Certain colors and forms are possessed by animals which adapt them to their surroundings in such wise that they are in a greater or less degree secured from observation and attack....
"A good illustration of this fact is found in the Disipsus Butterfly, which belongs to a group which is not especially protected, but is often the prey of insect-eating creatures. This butterfly has assumed almost the exact color and markings of the milkweed butterfly, which is distasteful to birds, and hence enjoys peculiar freedom from the attacks of enemies. ”

“ It is possible, as by a fly, sometimes for a slight skin inflammation, less than a mosquito’s bite, to follow the sting of a spider on a very small child.
Let me hereby disabuse the public mind of the repugnance or horror with which these little creatures are regarded. The Creator has evidently placed them here for the destruction of flies and other insects, which otherwise would completely overrun us. The fly is such a domestic creature, that he soon deserts a house where the family is long absent. ”

“ So fearless has the moth become that it even lays its eggs in the interior of the pitcher, and here, protected from all the manifold dangers of the outside world, they hatch out in security. The young caterpillars spin a web over the slippery surfaces and the projecting hairs, making a safe path for themselves to the outside. There is a blow-fly which is able, too, to crawl over the slippery surfaces by aid of peculiar claws which give it a good sure footing. ”