. Eyes and no eyes. ^ eryuseful in ridding us of bad-smelling creatures, forthey give out a kind of liquid which makes the fleshdecay more quickly so that they may eat it. All boys know gentils(b) used for fishing. These arethe maggots of the Blue-bottle,and when they have donefeeding they grow soft insideand dra^v themselves vip intoan egg-shape. Then they giveout a liquid which hardenstheir skin into a shiny reddish-brown case (c). Inside this theBlue-bottle forms, and therpushes its head out betweentwo little lids at the top of you catch a Blue-bottle and put it under abell-gla
. Eyes and no eyes. ^ eryuseful in ridding us of bad-smelling creatures, forthey give out a kind of liquid which makes the fleshdecay more quickly so that they may eat it. All boys know gentils(b) used for fishing. These arethe maggots of the Blue-bottle,and when they have donefeeding they grow soft insideand dra^v themselves vip intoan egg-shape. Then they giveout a liquid which hardenstheir skin into a shiny reddish-brown case (c). Inside this theBlue-bottle forms, and therpushes its head out betweentwo little lids at the top of you catch a Blue-bottle and put it under abell-glass with a few grains of sugar you maywatch it put out its trunk and feed. You will seethat it turns and twists the sugar as if it wereplaying with it. But all the time it is wetti^iigit with some liquid Avhich it sends down its trunkso as to work the hard lump into syrup which itcan suck up. If you press the thorax of a Blue-bottle very gently with your finger and tliumljit will put out its trunk and you can see the. HEAD OF BLOW - FLY,SHOWING THE LARGECOMPOUND EYES. THE TWO-WINGED FLIES. thick lips at the end with the sucker (a) betweenthem. But you will want a magnifying glass ora microscope to see a little lancet (/) %vhich it hasinside its trunk, and which it uses to j)ierce theskins of fruits, when it wants to suck their juice. There are two kinds of flies whichare much more hurtful than thecommon fly or the blue-bottle. Theseare the Gad-flies and the know one of tlie small Gad-fliesquite well, for it drops on our hands,or our neck, ^vhen we are sitting outof doors, and lets us know that it isthere, by giving a sharp bite to suckour blood. We call it the Horse-flybecause it teases the horses so muchin summer; but there are manj^othersAve do not know so well. The largestEnglish Gad-fly (4, p. 61) is about aninch long. The Bot-flies are more dangerousthan the Gad-flies, for instead ofbiting with their mouths they prick with a sharptube at the end of their abdom
Size: 1397px × 1789px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookideyesnoeyes00, bookyear1903
