A FLY PLAGUE.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue 72, 2 February 1877, Page 2

A FLY PLAGUE.

A Calcutta paper gives the following account of a plague of flies :— " When the people read of the plague of flies in Egypt they are sometimes apt to wonder what sort of flies they were— • whether they were our common and some** times very tiresome visitor, the house«fly, or whether they were a species of mosquito, or what. Tbey could not *#ell have been more tiresome than those little side* walking,, biting, jumping, green flies that aro said to usher ia the cold season of India* Of these Calcutta has had a veritable plague during the evenings of the last week. It has been scarcely pos* eible to sit at a tabie wbere there waa a light. Tbe flies came to flavor the soup, to improve the tea, and to fill up tbe inkstand. They cover a book if one attempts to read, or they settle upon people's spectacles or jump into their eyes. If people talk they have to be careful lest they draw in more tban the needful breath. The streets haro scarcely been better than tbe houses, and we have seen people passing lamp»postß with handkerchiefs over their faces, and others trying to protect themselves by tbe vigorous working of a fas, against which tbe insects rattle like peas, To drive in an opeu carriage was like meeting a hailstorm; and in some places business, wbere pleasure is business, has been brought to a stand. Hies burn their wings in the lamps of the billiard-room, and the dead flies shunt balls that are gently rolling foffa delicate cannon, or turn them from the direct line to tbe pocket. At the Corinthian the entrance hall was literally covered with them, the walls green with their nnmbers, and the floor carpeted witb tbeir bodies, At the entrance to the buffet tbey lay in heaps to tbe thickness of a hearth-rug under the gas lights, and in the house itself they were a great nuisance. It is to the credit of Dr Lynn that people stayed to see him, instead of seeking almost the only possible refuge from these übiquitous tor* menters, the friendly shelter of tha mosquito curtain." .