Capt. Dampier calls the natives of New Holland the “poor winking people of New Holland,” and concludes his description of them with the following observations: “Their eyelids are always half closed, to keep the Flies out of their eyes, they being so troublesome here that no fanning will keep them from coming to one’s face; and without the assistance of both hands to keep them off they will creep into one’s nostrils, and mouth, too, if the lips are not shut very close. So that from their infancy, being thus annoyed with these insects, they do never open their eyes as other people, and therefore they cannot see far, unless they hold up their heads, as if they were looking at something over them.”[969] In a house at Zaffraan-craal, Dr. Sparrman suffered so much from the common House-fly, _Musca domestica_, which, in the south of Africa, frequently appears in such prodigious numbers as to cover almost entirely the walls and ceilings, that, as he asserts, it was impossible for him to keep within doors for any length of time. To get rid of these troublesome pests, the natives resort to a very ingenious contrivance. It is thus related by the above-mentioned traveler: “Bunches of herbs are hung up all over the ceiling, on which the Flies settle in great numbers; a person then takes a linen net or bag, of a considerable depth, fixed to a long handle, and, inclosing in it every bunch, shakes it about, so that the Flies fall down to the bottom of the bag: when, after several applications of it in this manner, they are killed by a pint or a quart at a time, by dipping the bag into scalding hot water.”[970] Rhasis, Avicen, and Albertus say: “Bury the tail of a wolf in the house, and the Flies will not come into it.”[971] Berytius says: “Flies will never rest on dumb animals if they are rubbed with the fat of a lion.”[972] Pliny says: “At Rome yee shall not have a Flie or dog that will enter into the chappell of Hercules standing in the beast market.”[973] Plutarch, in the Eighth Book of his Symposiaques, learnedly discourses upon the tamableness of the Fly. His opinion is that it cannot be tamed.[974]