Gadfly

“ The tiny eggs are soon hatched by the natural heat of the animal, and the young larvæ crawl up the nostril towards the frontal sinus. There they remain until they are full-grown, when they crawl through the nostrils, fall on the ground, burrow therein, and in the earth undergo their changes into the pupal and perfect stages.
It need hardly be said that an intelligent shepherd would devote himself to the task of killing every gadfly which he could find, and, as these insects are fond of basking on sunny rocks or tree-trunks, this is no very difficult matter. ”

“ This economy in distributing food would prevent the waste unavoidable with my larva perhaps too sumptuously [231] treated. I subtract then from the sum obtained, and reduce it to sixty pieces of medium size, between that of the house-fly and Eristalis tenax. This would be about the number of Diptera given by the mother to the larva when the prey is middle-sized, as is the case with all the Bembecids of my district except B. rostrata and B. bidentata, which especially favour the gadfly. ”

“ And they tried to rag me in the smoking-room about not being able to hit a bird at five yards, a sort of bovine ragging that suggested cows buzzing round a gadfly and thinking they were teasing it. So I got up the next morning at early dawn—I know it was dawn, because there were lark-noises in the sky, and the grass looked as if it had been left out all night—and hunted up the most conspicuous thing in the bird line that I could find, and measured the distance, as nearly as it would let me, and shot away all I knew. ”

“ So early did they arrive at the lake that they had to wait for some hours ere a deer was to be seen. The principal reason why the deer spend so much time in the water seems to be to get rid of a number of troublesome flies that very much annoy them. Some species of gadfly have the power not only to sting them, but to insert their eggs under the skin, which soon develops into a large grub. Some of the skins of the reindeer are so perforated by these pests that they are absolutely worthless to the Indians. ”

“ A fly of various species, of the family Tabanid‘, noted for buzzing about animals, and tormenting them by sucking their blood; Ð called also horsefly, and gadfly. They are among the largest of twoÐwinged or dipterous insects. The name is also given to different species of botflies. ”

“ In the Lapland Alps there is a fly covered with a downy hair, called the rhen-deer gad-fly, oestrus tarandi, Linn. it hovers all day over these animals, whose legs tremble under them; they prick up their ears, and flee to the mountains covered with ice and snow to escape from a little hovering fly, but generally in vain, for the insect but too soon finds an opportunity to lodge its egg in the back of the deer; the worm hatched from this egg perforates the skin, and remains under it during the whole winter: in the following year it becomes a fly. ”

“ They are more or less midsummer flies and are single-brooded. There are several largeish species (of the genera Tabanus and Therioplectes) found in Great Britain, and they are diversely distributed, being respectively woodland, moorland, lowland, and highland inhabitants. The great ox-gad-fly is as large as a bumble-bee, though more long than broad in body, but the term gad-fly is often wrongly given to the worble-fly, which is really more bee-like, being furry and rounder in body. ”

“ These animals are troubled with an insect, called the gad-fly, who burrowing under their skins deposit their eggs, so that sometimes by the end of winter the worms that proceed from them render their skins as full of holes as a sieve. ”

“ But, instead of making their attacks on those of their own class, the gadflies prefer to install themselves on mammals, and sometimes even on man. The eggs are received into some cavity of the body, nostrils, stomach, or a hole in the skin, where they hatch and where the larvæ feed until the adult state is reached, when they escape and afterward live in freedom. ”

“ In the daytime it sleeps on the ground on some dry knoll or open part of the forest, and as twilight approaches sallies forth to the open glades and small plains or cleared lands in search of insects; its flight, which is much more powerful than that of any other Goatsucker I have seen, enabling it to pass through the air with great rapidity, and to mount up and dart down almost at right angles whenever an insect comes within the range of its eye, which is so large and full that its powers of vision must be very great. ”

“ The goldfish will do the darting about, and we can get our feeling of life and movement in watching them. Or we may follow the flight of the bird we have startled from the Cherry tree, and study the struttings and preenings of the two sparrows that so boldly hop and peck beside the water-basin, or lazily observe the great velvet-blue butterfly, cho-cho-no-hana, or ‘insect like a flower,’ that flits from bloom to bloom among the Irises, softly, as if they were petals blown by the breeze. ”

“ The eyes of certain Gad-flies, magnificently gilded, with three purple bands, very quickly grow pale and dim, like the eyes of a dying man. All these Flies, large and small, when placed in little paper bags through which the air circulates freely, dry up in two or three days and become brittle; all, when preserved against evaporation in glass tubes in which the air is stationary, go mouldy and decay. They are dead, therefore, really and truly dead, when the Wasp brings them to her larva. Should some of them still retain a remnant of life, a few days or even hours put an end to their agony. ”

“ Small white wings that we scarce can see,
Fly.
Some fly light as a laugh of glee,
Some fly soft as a long, low sigh;
All to the haven where each should be,
Fly.
[185]
THE BUTTERFLY Mrs. Alfred Gatty
“Let me hire you as a nurse for my poor children,” said a Butterfly to a quiet Caterpillar, who was strolling along a cabbage-leaf in her odd lumbering way. “See these little eggs,” continued the Butterfly; “I don’t know how long it will be before they come to life, and I feel very sick and poorly, and if I should die, who will take care of my baby butterflies when I am gone? ”

“ East of the Blue Nile, in the Kuba country, another species of fly, smaller than the doboan, is fatal only to the ass, horse, dog, and camel. But the cause of the mortality of these animals may pos- sibly be due, not so much to the sting of one single insect, as to the thousands of wounds inflicted daily by the swarms of gadflies which absolutely worry the animals to death. ”

“ As insects dart by, the person with the net brings it down over them with a quick motion.
The dragon-fly larva has something much like this with which to catch its food. The lower jaw is fastened by a hinge to a little jointed rod. The rod, and the jaw-plate upon the end of it, when not in use, are folded down upon the head of the insect.
The plate has fine teeth upon its edge. When the prey comes by, the larva snaps out its rod, with the plate, as if they both were on a spring, and so catches the things that are swimming along a little way off. ”

“ I lolled there on the bank, thinking to gaze my fill at all this loveliness, and sat upon the puke, a feathery plant exquisite to the eye, but a veritable bunch of gadflies for pricking meanness. It is a sensitive shrub, retreating at man's approach, its petioles folding from sight, but with all its modesty it left me a stinging reminder that I had failed to respect its privacy. ”

“ THE STRUCTURE OF THE HOUSE-FLY The house-fly has quite the typical insect form, inasmuch as there are three well defined sections of body—the head, the chest or thorax, and the abdomen; also it has three pairs of legs, each with nine joints, of which five joints constitute what may be called the foot. The twelve segments of the maggot are observable as twelve rings in the puparium, but in the fly the three which form the thorax look like one, whilst the eight which should theoretically exist in the abdomen look like four or five, until the rings of the ovipositor are counted. ”

“ Nedda pressed her hands to her breast. Twice she added up those figures on the blackboard; each time the number was the same. Ah, there was a fly—two flies! How nice they looked, moving, moving, chasing each other in the air. Did flies get into the cells? Perhaps not even a fly came there—nothing more living than walls and wood! Nothing living except what was inside oneself! How dreadful! Not even a clock ticking, not even a bird's song! ”

“ 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? ”

“ When the surface presented to a dense resisting medium is increased, speed is diminished, as shown in the tardy movements of the mollusc, caterpillar, and slowworm, and also, though not to the same extent, in the serpents, some of which move with considerable celerity. In the gecko and common house-fly, as is well known, the travelling surfaces are furnished with suctorial discs, which enable those creatures to walk, if need be, in an inverted position ”

“ Other Gad flies, but much smaller, though as annoying to us in woods and fields, are the species of Golden eyed flies, Chrysops, which fly and buzz interminably about our ears, often taking a sudden nip. They plague cattle, settling upon them and drawing their blood at their leisure. ”

“ The fly is the insect of quickest flight, therefore a degree of intrigue is necessary. This is managed by running past the victim slowly, and apparently in an unconcerned manner, until the poor fly is caught unawares, and carried off by the Mellinus to its burrow. The first fly being deposited, an egg is laid. ”

“ They must all be mounted—the insects quivering upon brass wire, the humming-birds with their feathers ruffled; they must be cleansed and polished, the beak in a bright red, claw repaired with a silk thread, dead eyes replaced with sparkling pearls, and the insect or the bird restored to an appearance of life and grace. ”

“ Supposing that you have reared and watched a caterpillar to apparently healthy maturity, that it has duly become a chrysalis, and you are awaiting its appearance in butterfly splendour—peeping into your box some morning to see if the bright expected one is "out," be not surprised if in its stead you find the box tenanted by a swarm of little black flies—an impish-looking crew. ”

“ The Auger finds also a natural representative in the ovipositor of an insect.
That of the common Gad-fly (Œstrus bovis) is most beautifully constructed. It is tubular in form, and is of a telescopic nature, consisting of four tubes of different sizes, the smaller fitting into the larger just as is done with the joints of a common telescope, or those of a Japanese fishing-rod.
The end of the ovipositor is developed into little projections, some of which are armed with hard, sharp points, which act exactly like the cutting edge of the auger. ”

“ It retires into its chrysalis, and during the winter a transformation takes place, and in spring it breaks forth as a glorious butterfly. The painted wings of the insect in its second stage of existence are the sublimated cabbage it has devoured in its condition of larva. ”

“ And there was the still greater task of keeping them under control on a hot, close day—to hedge them in in full gallop, so that they stood in the middle of the meadow stamping on the ground with uplifted tails, in fear of the gad-flies. If he wanted to, he could make them tear home to the stable in wild flight, with their tails in the air, on the coldest October day, only by lying down in the grass and imitating the hum of gad-flies. But that was a tremendous secret, that even Father Lasse knew nothing about. ”

“ The sacs are largest in dragon-flies, moths, flies, and bees, which are swift of flight. When we compare the active movements of these insects on the wing with those of a caterpillar or maggot, it will be seen that the far greater muscular exertions of the volant insect create a demand for a sudden and abundant supply of air to correspond to the increased rapidity of respiration; and the enlargements of the air-tubes, rapidly filled with air at each inspiration, render it possible to supply the demand.
Fig. ”

“ Taking the bits between their teeth, and regardless of rein, horses, mules, all rush simultaneously and madly forward, as if each had a score of gadflies with their venomous probosces buried deep in its body. ”

“ Probably we shall find bubbles of air collecting round some of the insects, within their pockets; as the time approaches nearer and nearer for the change to the perfect insect to take place the bubbles grow larger and larger. Eventually the fly emerges within a bubble, shakes it free from the pocket and floats to the surface of the water without wetting its wings.
The pond will supply insects quite as interesting as the running stream. Here we may find the eggs of Caddis flies, enclosed in jelly-like envelopes, rope-like, horse-shoe shaped or simple masses. ”

“ Several of the large gad-flies have dull-tinted wings. They have large, shallow, brightly shining and curiously banded compound eyes, but no "ocelli"; they all seem to be at least semi-blind, and the females are rather sluggish, except between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. in bright midsummer sunshine. The females hunt entirely by scent and are easily captured when attacking human beings; they alight on their victims with a stealthy silent approach. They appear unable to discriminate between clothing and bare skin as suitable spots for feeding. ”