FLY SCAVENGERS
There are various kinds of insects that perform a very useful work in
the world, for which they do not always receive credit. When you pass
a dead Mole in the fields, and see Ants, Beetles and Flies on it, you
shudder and get away from the spot as quickly as possible. You think
they are horrid, dirty insects; but they are not; they are busy making
the world a cleaner place for you to live in. Let us watch some of
these Flies at work, and we shall get an idea of the wonderful things
they do in this connection.
You have seen the Greenbottle Flies. They are a beautiful golden-green
which shines like metal, and they have red eyes, set in a silver
border. They scent dead animals from far away, and rush to lay their
eggs in them. A few days afterward, the flesh of the corpse has turned
into liquid, in which are thousands of tiny grubs with pointed heads.
This is very unpleasant, perhaps you think; but, after all, it is the
best and easiest way for dead things to disappear, to be absorbed in
the soil and pass on to another form of life. And it is the little
Greenbottle worms that produce this liquid.
If the corpse were left undisturbed, it would dry up and take a long
while to disappear. The Greenbottle grubs, and the grubs of other Flies
as well, have a wonderful power of turning solid things into liquid.
When I give the Greenbottle grubs a piece of hard-boiled white of
egg to feed upon, they turn it at once into a colorless liquid which
looks like water. They have some sort of pepsin which comes out of
their mouths and does this work. It is like the gastric juice in our
stomach, which dissolves and renders digestible the food we eat. The
grubs or worms live on the broth they make in this way until it has all
disappeared.
Other Flies whose worms do this work are the Gray Flesh-flies and the
big Bluebottles, whom you often see buzzing about the window-panes. Do
not let them come near the meat for your dinner, for if they do they
will surely make it uneatable. Out in the fields, however, they are
in their right element. They give back to life, with all speed, the
remains of that which has lived; they change corpses into an essence
which enriches our foster-mother earth.
[Illustration]