Part 7

"When opened, the cellular tissue on the surface of the body beneath the skin is seen to be injected with air, as if a quantity of soap bubbles were scattered over it, or a dishonest awkward butcher had been trying to make it look fat. The fat is of a greenish-yellow colour, and of an oily consistence. All the muscles are flabby, and the heart often so soft that the fingers may be made to meet through it. The lungs and liver partake of the disease. The stomach and bowels are pale and empty, and the gall-bladder is distended with bile. These symptoms seem to indicate, what is probably the case, a poison in the blood; the germ of which enters when the proboscis is inserted to draw blood. The poison-germ contained in a bulb at the root of the proboscis, seems capable, although very minute in quantity, of reproducing itself. The blood after death by Tsetse is very small in quantity, and scarcely stains the hands in dissection....

"The mule, ass, and goat enjoy the same immunity from the Tsetse as man and game. Many large tribes on the Zambesi can keep no domestic animals except the goat, in consequence of the scourge existing in their country. Our children were frequently bitten, yet suffered no harm; and we saw around us numbers of zebras, buffaloes, pigs, pallahs and other antelopes, feeding quietly in the very habitat of the Tsetse, yet as undisturbed by its bite as oxen are when they first receive the fatal poison. There is not so much difference in the natures of the horse and zebra, the buffalo and ox, the sheep and the antelope, as to afford any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. Is a man not as much a domestic animal as a dog?

"The curious feature in the case, that dogs perish though fed on milk, whereas the calves escape so long as they continue sucking, made us imagine that the mischief might be produced by some plant in the locality, and not by Tsetse; but Major Vardon, of the Madras army, settled that point by riding a horse up to a small hill infested by the insect, without allowing him time to graze, and though he only remained long enough to take a view of the country and catch some specimens of Tsetse on the animal, in ten days afterwards the horse was dead."[18]

[18] "Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa," by David Livingstone, LL.D., D.C.L. P. 81, _et seq._ London, John Murray, 1857. (The extract in the original of this work is from a French translation: "Explorations dans l'Intérieur de l'Afrique australe, et voyages à travers le continent Sainte-Paul de Loanda à l'Embouchure du Zambèze, de 1840 à 1846, traduit de l'Anglais." Pages 93-95. 8vo. Paris, 1859.--ED.)

The inhabitants of the Zambesi can, therefore, have no domestic animal but the goat. When herds of cattle driven by travellers or dealers are obliged to cross these regions, they only move them during the bright nights of the cool season, and are careful to smear them with dung mixed with milk; the Tsetse fly having an intense antipathy to the dung of animals, besides being in this season rendered dormant by the lowness of the temperature. It is only by such precautions that they are able to get through this dangerous stage of their journey.

The large blue Meat-fly, the familiar representative of the genus _Calliphora_, is known to all by its brilliant blue and white reflecting abdomen. This fly, which is common everywhere, is the _Calliphora vomitoria_ on which Réaumur has made many beautiful observations, which we will make known to our readers.

If we shut up a blue meat-fly in a glass vase, as Réaumur did, and place near the insect a piece of fresh meat, before half a day is passed, the fly will have deposited its eggs thereon one after the other, in irregular heaps, of various sizes. The whole of these heaps consist of about two hundred eggs, which are of an iridescent white colour, and four or five times as long as they are broad. In less than twenty-four hours after the egg is laid the larvæ is hatched. It is no sooner born than it thinks of feeding, and buries itself in the meat with the aid of the hooks and lancets with which it is provided.

These worms do not appear to discharge any solid excrement, but they produce a sticky liquid, which keeps the meat in a moist state and hastens its putrefaction. The larvæ eat voraciously and continually; so much so, that in four or five days they arrive at their full growth. They then take no more nourishment until they are transformed into flies. They are now about to assume the pupa state. In this condition it is no longer necessary for them to remain on the tainted meat, which has been alike their cradle and their larder, and where until now they were so well off. They therefore leave it and seek a retreat under ground.

The larva then assumes a globular form and reddish colour, loses all motion, and cannot any longer either lengthen or shorten, or dilate or contract itself. Life seems to have left it. "It would be considered a miracle," says Réaumur, "if we were told there was any kind of quadruped of the size of a bear, or of an ox, which at a certain time of the year, the beginning of winter for instance, disengages itself completely from its skin, of which it makes a box of an oval form; that it shuts itself up in this box; that it knows how to close it in every part, and besides that it knows how to strengthen it in such a manner as to preserve itself from the effects of the air and the attacks of other animals. This prodigy is presented to us, on a small scale, in the metamorphosis of our larva. It casts its skin to make itself a strong and well-closed dwelling."

If one opens these cocoons only twenty-four hours after the metamorphoses of the worms, no vestige of those parts appertaining to a pupa is to be found. But four or five days afterwards, the cocoon is occupied by a white pupa, provided with all the parts of a fly. The legs and wings, although enclosed in sheaths, are very distinct; these sheaths being so thin that they do not conceal them. The trunk of the fly rests on the thorax; one can discern its lips, and the case which encloses the lancet. The head is large and well formed, its large, compound eyes being very distinct. The wings appear still unformed, because they are folded, and, as it were, packed up. It is a fly, but an immovable and inanimate fly; it is like a mummy enveloped in its cloths.

Nevertheless, it is intended this mummy should awake, and when the time comes it will be strong and vigorous. Indeed, it has need of strength and vigour to accomplish the important work of its life. Although its coverings are thin, it is a considerable work for the insect to emerge, for each of its exterior parts is enclosed in them as in a case, much the same as a glove fits tightly to all the fingers of the hand. But that for which the most strength is necessary is the operation of forming the opening of the cocoon, in which as a mummy it is so tightly enclosed.

The fly always comes out at the same end of the cocoon, that is, at the end where its head is placed, and also where the head of the larva previously was. This end is composed of two parts--of two half cups placed one against the other. These can be detached from each other and from the rest of the cocoon. It is sufficient for the fly that one can be detached, and in order to effect this, it employs a most astonishing means. It expands and contracts its head alternately, as if by dilatation; and thus pushes the two half cups away from the end of the cocoon. This is not long able to resist the battering of the fly's head, and the insect at length comes out triumphant. This fly, which should be blue, is then grey; it, however, comes quickly to perfection, at the end of three hours attaining its ultimate colour; and in a very short space of time every part of the animal becomes of that firmness and consistency which characterises them. At the same time, the wings, which at the moment it came into the world were only stumps, extend and unfold themselves by degrees. The meat-fly is represented below (Fig. 55).

One of the features in the formation of this fly which most attracted the attention of Réaumur, and which is likely to excite the curiosity of all those who take an interest in insects, is the composition of its trunk. We will, therefore, with that illustrious observer, take a glimpse at the remarkable and complicated apparatus by the aid of which the fly can suck up liquids, and can even taste solid and crystalline substances, such as sugar.

It is no difficult matter to make a fly show its trunk extended to its full extent. One has only to press between the finger and thumb either the two sides of the upper and under part of the thorax. It is thus forced at once to put out its tongue.

The trunk appears to be composed of two parts joined together, and forming a more or less obtuse angle (Fig. 56). The first portion of the trunk, that which joins the head, is perfectly membranous and in the form of a funnel. We will call it the conical part, and show it separately (Fig. 57). The second portion terminates in a thick mass, in part cartilaginous or scaly, and of a shiny brown colour. Above the conical portion are two oblong antennæ, without joints, of chestnut colour, and furnished with hairs.

On ceasing to press the thorax, the membranous conical portion may be seen to draw itself back within its sheath (Fig. 58). The second portion is at the same time drawn into the cavity, but it raises itself by forming a more and more acute angle, so that when it reaches the opening of the cell it is parallel with, and its length is equal to that of the cell, which is quite large enough to receive it. The base lengthens and flattens a little, and conceals the trunk.

Let us cause the trunk to extend itself a second time, in order to observe its tip minutely. Here the opening is placed, which may be looked upon as the mouth of the insect, and is provided with two large thick lips (Fig. 59). These lips form a disc, perpendicular to the axis of the trunk; the disc is oval, and is divided into two equal and similar parts by a slit. The lips have each a considerable number of parallel channels situated perpendicularly to the slit. These channels are formed by a succession of vessels placed near each other. On pressing the trunk we see that these vessels are distended by a liquid. Réaumur, from whom we borrow these details, discovered a few of the uses to which this trunk is applied. He covered the interior of a transparent glass vase with a light coat of thick syrup. He then put in some flies, when it was easy to see some of them proceed to fix themselves to the sides of the vase, and regale themselves on the sugary liquid, of which they are very fond. He observed them carefully, and in his admirable work he recommends those who are curious to try the experiment, with which, like himself, they will certainly be satisfied.

While the body of the trunk is stationary its end is much agitated. It may be seen to move in different ways, and with an astonishing quickness; the lips acting in a hundred different ways, and always with great rapidity. The small diameter of the disc which they form lengthens and shortens alternately; the angle formed by the two lips varies every instant; they become successively flat and convex, either entirely or partly. All these movements, Réaumur remarks, give a high idea of the organisation of the part which performs them.

The object of all these movements is to draw the syrup into the interior of the trunk. If we observe the lips (Fig. 60) attentively, it will easily be seen that they touch each other about the centre of the disc, and leave two openings, one in front, the other at the back. The one in front is, one may say, the mouth of the fly, as it is to this opening that the liquid is brought, which is intended to be and is soon introduced into the trunk. Without occupying ourselves for the present with the channel through which it rises, we may first ask, whatever that channel may be, what is the power that forces the liquid into it?

It is nearly certain that suction is the principal cause of the liquid flowing up the trunk. It would thus be a sort of pump, into which the liquid is forced by the pressure of the external air. The fly exhausts the air from the tube of its trunk, and the drop of liquid which is at the opening penetrates and goes up this channel through the influence of the atmospheric pressure. To this physical phenomenon must be added the numerous and multiplied movements which take place in the trunk, and which are intended to cause sufficient pressure to drive the liquor which is introduced into the channel upwards.

Réaumur wished to know how it was that very thick syrups, and even solid sugar, can be sucked up by the soft trunk of the fly. What he saw is wonderful. If a fly meets with too thick a syrup, it can render it sufficiently liquid; if the sugar is too hard, it can dissolve small portions of it. In fact, there exists in its body a supply of liquid, of which it discharges a drop from the end of its trunk at will, and lets this fall on the sugar which it wishes to dissolve, or on the syrup it wishes to dilute. A fly, when held between the fingers, often shows at the end of its trunk a drop, very fluid and transparent, of this liquid. "The water poured on the syrup," says Réaumur, "would not always insinuate itself sufficiently quick into every part of it; the movement of the fly's lips hastens the operation; the lips turn over, work, and knead it, so that the water can quickly penetrate it, in the same way as one handles and kneads with one's hands a hard paste which it is wished to soften, by causing the water by which it is covered to mix with it. This, again, is the same means the fly employs with sugar. When the trunk is forced to act upon a grain of irregular and rugged form, on which it cannot easily fasten, its end distorts itself to seize and hold it. It is sometimes very amusing to see how the fly turns over the grain of sugar in different ways; it appears to play with it as a monkey would with an apple. It is, however, only that it may hold it well in order to moisten it more successfully, and afterwards to pump up the water which has partly dissolved it."

Réaumur often observed a drop of water at the end of the trunks of flies which were perfectly surfeited with food. This drop ascended the trunk, then re-descended to the end, and this many times in succession. It appeared to him that it was necessary for these insects, as for many quadrupeds, to chew the cud, as it were; that, in order the better to digest the liquid they had passed into their stomachs, they were obliged to bring it back into the trunk that it might return again better prepared.

In order to assure himself directly of the reality of his supposition, Réaumur tested the water which a fly, that he says "had got drunk on sugar," had brought back to the end of its trunk; he found this to be sugar and water. Also, having given a fly currant-jelly, he observed, after it had sufficiently gorged itself, several drops of red liquid in its trunk, and having tasted it, found it had the flavour which, from its appearance, he guessed it would have.

The illustrious observer, who had already made all these discoveries on the formation and functions of the trunks of insects, often reflected on the fact that the liquors of which flies are most fond are enclosed under the skin of certain fruits, such as pears, plums, grapes, &c., or even under the skin of some animals of which they suck the blood. In order that the trunk of a fly may act under such circumstances, it is necessary for it to pierce and open the skin. If this is the case, flies ought to be possessed of a lancet. He looked a long time for this lancet, and at last found it. It is situated on the upper side of the part of the trunk which is terminated by the lips; it is placed in a fleshy groove, and is enclosed in a case. It has a very fine point, and is of light colour (Fig. 61). The point is situated in the opening which is to be seen between the lips of the trunk, at its anterior end, through which liquids may pass. That is the only opening of the lips; and the sucker which takes up the liquid is the same part which we just now called the case of the lancet.

Réaumur is so interesting an author that it is difficult to cease quoting him; but we must continue our review of the principal kinds of Diptera.

The genus _Musca_ (fly), in which Linnæus comprised the immense series of Diptera, with the exception of the _Tipulidæ_, the _Tabanidæ_, the _Asilidæ_, the _Bombylidæ_, and the _Empidæ_, is now reduced to the House Fly and a few resembling it. The habits of these troublesome companions are in conformity with the two great principles of animal life, that is, eating and propagating their species.

Flies feed principally on fluids which exude from the bodies of animals; that is, sweat, saliva, and other secretions. They also seek vegetable juices; and they may be seen in our houses to feed eagerly on fruits and sweet substances.

The common flies deposit their eggs on vegetables, and particularly on fungi in a state of decomposition, on dung-heaps, cow dung, &c. They are essentially parasites, settling on both man and beast, to suck up the fluid substances which are diffused over the surface of their bodies. In our dwellings they eat anything that will serve to nourish them. Generation succeeds generation with the greatest rapidity.

The House Fly (_Musca domestica_, Fig. 62) is about three lines in length, ash coloured, with the face black, the sides of the head yellow, and the forehead yellow with black stripes; the thorax is marked with black lines; the abdomen is pale underneath, and a transparent yellow at the sides, in the males, and is speckled with black. The feet are black; the wings transparent, and yellowish at the base. This species is extremely plentiful throughout the whole of Europe. Every one knows how annoying it is towards the end of the summer, and especially so in the South of France during the hot season.

The Ox Fly (_Musca bovina_), a near relation of the house fly, is also very common. It settles on the nostrils, the eyes, and the wounds of animals.

The Executioner Fly (_Musca carnifex_), which is not rare in France, also attacks oxen. It is of a dark metallic green colour with a slight ash-coloured down. Its forehead is silvery at the front and sides; the abdomen is edged with black; the wings hyaline, and yellow at the base.

_Section of the Anthomyides._--The section of _Anthomyides_ comprises insects which appear to be _Creophili_ whose organisation has become weakened by almost insensible degrees. Their colours vary very much--black, grey, and iron-colour are everlastingly shaded and blended together. To that may be added reflections which are above the ground colour, and which change the hues of the little animal according to the incidence of the rays of light. The _Anthomyides_ resemble the genus _Musca_ very closely in their habits as well as in their organisation.

In this group of Diptera we will first say a few words about the _Anthomiæ_. These flies are to be found in most gardens, and on all flowers, particularly on the heads of Compositæ and Umbelliferæ. They often unite in numerous bands in the air, and indulge in the joyous dances to which love invites them. The females deposit their eggs in the ground, and their larvæ are there quickly developed. The latter suspend themselves to certain bodies, the same as some lepidopterous chrysalides, in order to transform themselves into pupæ.

The _Anthomyia pluvialis_ (Fig. 63) is from two to four lines in length, and of a whitish ash-colour. Its wings are hyaline, the thorax has five black spots, and the abdomen three rows of similar spots.

We will stop a moment with the _Pegomyiæ_, which are very interesting in the larva state, and which excited the interest and sagacity of Réaumur.

The cradle of these Diptera is the interior of leaves. They work as the miners of the vegetable world, in the parenchyma or cellular tissue of the leaf, between the two epidermal membranes. The henbane, the sorrel, and the thistle, especially nourish them. If one holds a leaf in which one of these miners has established itself against the light, one sees the workman boring the vegetable membrane. Its head is armed with a hook, formed of two horny pieces, and with this hook it digs into the parenchyma of the leaf. The effect of this digging is visible, as those places become by degrees transparent. Each blow detaches a small portion of the substance of the leaf. It is thus that these miners hollow out galleries for themselves, in which they find shelter, food, and security. Some are changed into pupæ in the gallery which they have hollowed out, others go out of the leaves when they are near their final transformation.

_Section of Acalyptera._--The _Acalyptera_, which are the last of the great tribe of _Muscidæ_, comprehend the greater number of these insects. Their constitution appears to be peculiar and slow. They live principally in the thickest part of woods, on grasses, and aquatic plants. Fearing the lustre and warmth of the sun, they never draw the nectar from flowers. Their flight is feeble, and they never indulge in those joyous ethereal dances which we have mentioned when speaking of the preceding groups. Their life is generally melancholy, obscure, and hidden. Some of them seek decomposed animal and vegetable substances, others living vegetables.

We shall only be able in this immense group of _Muscidæ_ to mention a few types which are interesting from various reasons, such as the _Helomyzæ_, the _Scatophagæ_, the _Ortalides_, the _Daci_, and the _Thyreophoræ_.

The _Helomyzæ_ (Fig. 64) live in the woods. Their larvæ are developed in the interior of fungi. Réaumur studied the larvæ of the Truffle Helomyza. The head of this fly is ferruginous, its thorax is of a brownish grey, its shoulders of a brownish yellow, its wings brownish, the abdomen yellow and brown, and the feet red. The larvæ of these insects commit depredations for which gourmands will never forgive them, destroying, as they do, their truffles. When one presses between one's fingers a truffle that is in a too advanced state, one feels certain soft parts, which yield under pressure. On opening the truffle, the larvæ of the insect of which we are speaking will be found inside. These larvæ are white and very transparent. Their mouth is armed with two black hooks, by means of which they dig into the truffle in the same way as other larvæ dig into meat. The excretions of these little parasites cause the truffle to become decomposed and rotten. In a few days the larvæ become full-grown. They then leave their abode and go into the ground, there to change into pupæ.

The _Ortalidæ_ form a tribe which is remarkable for the upright carriage of the wings, which are generally speckled, by the vibratory movement of these organs, and especially for the cradle chosen by them for their progeny in fruits and grains. Nature seems to have assigned to each species its own particular vegetable.