As for her body, the head is very
delicately attached to the neck and so is easily
moved, not fixed like the head of a grasshopper.
The eyes are prominent, and have much the quality
of horn, The breast is solid, and the legs grow
right out of the waist, which is not at all pinched*
up, as in wasps. As in them, the abdomen is
armoured and resembles a corselet in having flat
zones and scales. She differs, however, from the
wasp and the bee, in that her weapon is not the
hinder-part, but the mouth, or rather the proboscis;
for, like the elephant, she has a trunk with which
she forages, seizing things and holding them tenaciously, since it is like a tentacle at the end. A
tooth protrudes from it with which the fly inflicts
bites in order to drink the blood, for although she
drinks milk, she likes blood also. The bite causes no
great pain. Though she has six feet, she walks with
only four and uses the two in fwont for all the
purposes of hands. You can see her standing on
four legs, holding up something to eat in her hands
just as we human beings do.

 
The fly is not born in the form which I have described, but as a maggot from the dead bodies of men
or animals. Then, little by little, she puts out
legs, grows her wings, changes from a creeping
to a flying thing, is impregnated and becomes mother
to a little maggot which is to-morrow’s fly. Living


 

in the society of man, on the same. food and at the
same table, she eats everything except oil: to taste
this is death to her. Being the creature of a day—
for life is meted out to her in very scant measure—
she likes sunshine best and goes about her affairs in
it. At night she keeps quiet and does not fly or
sing, but hides away and is still.