THE SCOURGE FROM THE AIR.

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2645, 20 October 1919, Page 7

THE SCOURGE FROM THE AIR.

HOW A FLY BECAME AN UNWELCOME COLONIST AMONG THE DEER. She was one mighty small squat, flat, long-legged, lively tiny beastie, less in length than my little fingernail, but she was unique among insects, for she had been born—real born —not as an egg, but as a grub, and had immediately turned into a chrysalis, which at last an inquisitive wood-pigeon mistook for a vetch seed, and all but ate. This was after certain days, when another transformation had come upon her, and, lo ! your little fly. But no common or garden fly, for her nearest relation —her cousin, if it please you—was the flea. Fate and her father’s Kismet had had given her wings with which she flew from under the amazed woodpigeon’s beak with great promptitude, and as promptly settled upon the wood-pigeon’s back. And Madam Pigeon knew it ! It felt like locating a needle. Business for the moment, in the shape of a man with a gun, required flight at forty miles an hour on the part of the pigeon. But the fact did not rattle our unique little fly. She raced about like a racehorse among her host’s feathers for a bit, but finally seemed to decide that, though self-avowcdly out for blood, this sample was not of the properly ordained vintage for her. Wherefore, calmly and coolly, she —stepped off in mid-air. Her descent to earth was hectic. Landing, or flattened rather, by a puff of wind against the gnarled trunk of a patriarch oak, she caught suddenly a whiff of a scent which, though she had never smelt it before, was as the smell of the Nile to a desert traveller.

It was, as a matter of fact, the peculiar and pungent scent of deer. She could not see them, for they were still—dappled shadows among the dappled shades ; but, like most insects, so long as she had her wonderful feelers —which were nose and a few other things rolled into one for her —seeing was a minor point. She flew at once down to a soft and silky, warm body—one of a dozen —lying invisible among the yellowgreen bracken, and she settled upon the back thereof. She stuck her proboscis—a needle was a barge-pole to it—into that hide, and found that the vintage was entirely good. That she had settled upon the biggest buck the lord of the herd, was a matter of no concern to her, for at that moment a gay little bachelor fly of her own race came and settled beside her, and the two ran off, as it were, arm-in-arm. But, first of all, before they did this they stopped and deliberately snapped off their tiny wings by bending them under. They loved that stag so much, you see, that they never meant to leave him more. Poor stag !

A GRAND HOW. The happy couple had gone to the Lakes for their trip, and spent the first morning before breakfast boating gloriously about Windermere. “Oh, Tom !’’ exclaimed the bride, | “isn’t it hcavenlv ! Let’s send a telegram to papa and mamma, and tell them what a perfectly scrumptious time we’re having ! Let’s say ‘Getting on splendidly. Grand row before breakfast.’ ’’ Forty minutes later a telegram was laid on the breakfast table of the parents. The old man read it, and sadly shook his head. “An !’’ he exclaimed, dole- j fully, “they’ve begun already, my dear.’’ j “What is it ?’’ anxiously inquired the fond mother. “Listen to this, my dear : ‘Grand row before breakfast.’ “Well, well, I suppose it had to come some time.’’ i