EDUCATED FLIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 321, 12 January 1909, Page 4

EDUCATED FLIES.

WONDERS OF AN INSECT FAR.M. LONDON, November 14. i The only lly farm and training stable for insecis in liie country is owned by | Mr V. P. Smith, a young olliciiil in the service of the Local (,'overmnent Board. In demonstrations at the lly farm at .Mr Smith's house in Islington highly educated, Hies perform remarkable allies. AHy will lie on its back and keep a ball revolving with its feet for hours at a stretch, or sit on a char: dressed in a specially cut silk gown and cap, and nurse a doll. So perfect are the performances thai cinematograph records have been taken of them.

Great patience had to be exercised by Mr Smith before lie could make the Hies do- as he wished. Their home is; a. glass-topped case, and when a fly has by much drumming against the glass, had the fact dinned into it that it cannot reallv get away it becomes tractable and 'teachable.' Some (lies that Mr Smith lias reared; will not lly away when they have the chance, and even a wild fly, snatched from freedom, sometimes consents of its own free will to stay at home. Among the articles which the fly trainer has made for the purposes of performances, arc :

Machine which registers on a dial the strength of a fly's pull in grains. Chair carved out of a, top of a penholder.

Doll carved from the handle of a tooth-brush.

| Dumb-bell made of two cork balls 'jined with a stick. A cork-ball. All these toys a (rawed Jlv will plav wrth.

'T find that a flv placed on its back will turn a cork' ball for nearly an hour," said Mr Smith veslerdav '"My idea is that the fly does not realise lti position, and imagines that it is running along a surface the, whole time To get a 11 v to sit on a ehniC its wings have to be slightly gummed to the back to give it (lie necessarv support. Then it will Hold the doll iu its legs and nod its head like a nurse-girl."

Other insects besides Hies have been trained by this young Government ollicial. 'lie has taught a spider to run up a slick and take'food held out lo it. A lizard which he has in his possession will lake and hold a cigarette in its mouth, but i-esoliitelv refuses to smok. it.