HOW FLIES CLIMB.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3594, 18 January 1883, Page 4

HOW FLIES CLIMB.

Some very interesting facts on the above ■subject were recently contributed to (ho Berlin Society of Natural History by Hen--11. Dewitz, which go far to prove that the feet of flies cannot possess the sucking properties ascribed to them, for they are hard, and destitute of muscles. A long time ago Blackwell contradicted this theory, and maintained that the power of adherence was due to a sticky matter secreted from the foot-hairs to the fly. This theory was pronounced not proven. Dewitz, after careful experiments, shows that Blackwell was riu'ht. lie watched the exudation of the sticky matter from the feet of the fly, Ijv fastening one to the under side of a piece of glass, and examining it through a microscope. A perfectly clear liquid was seen to flow from the ends' of the foot-hairs, and to attach the foot to the glass. When the foot was lifted up to be put down in another place, the drops of sticky matter were left on the glass exactly on the spot where the foot-hairs rested. Leydig discovered certain ylands in the folds of"the foot in 1850, and from them the adhesive fluid appears to flow down through the hollow of the hair. A similar adhesive fluid appears to be possessed by bugs, many larvic, and probably by aH insects which'climb under sides of leaves of trees and plants. —Land and Water.