“Well,” said the fly thoughtfully, “I’m sure I don’t see why we don’t. Possibly no fly ever thought of it. It doesn’t seem to be intended that we should. I never could work out in the hot sun the way you do. The people don’t molest very often,—not as much as they’d like to; we have too sharp eyes, and too many of them. We each have hundreds and hundreds of little eyes, and every one moves and looks in a different way. It’s rather difficult to come up behind us, as the elephant did.” “How was that?” asked Zoo. “Don’t you know? “‘A grasshopper sat on a sweet-potato vine, Sweet-potato vine, sweet-potato vine, A great big elephant came up behind, And knocked him off that sweet-potato vine.’ “I’m not sure about the story; it’s just possible that it may be taken from the New York paper, but, anyway, we believe it, and often laugh at the grasshopper.” “What do you eat?” asked Zed. “Anything I find, almost. Flies are not at all particular. We can enjoy anything that any one does. Our mouths are hollow tubes, through which we suck whatever we wish to eat. This is a very convenient way.” “You have enemies,” remarked Zoo. “We have just been calling on a spider who is longing for a taste of some of you.” “You don’t say so!” cried the fly. “She is not very near here, is she? Those spider-webs are the great torment of our lives. I have had several friends caught and eaten by the spiders. The way they wind their fine, yet strong threads about one, is something remarkable. I know a pretty good verse about them, too: “‘The spider wears a plain brown dress, And she’s a steady spinner; To see her, quiet as a mouse, Going about her silver house, You’d never, never, never guess The way she gets her dinner.’ That’s real pathetic, isn’t it, now?” “Very,” answered Zed and Zoo, together. “I met a Southern fly once,” continued the talkative fly, “and they have more enemies down there than we do in the North. Take the lizards and chameleons, for instance—” “Oh! we know about them,” cried the little ants. “And then the walking-sticks,” continued the fly, not pausing at the interruption, but rather looking severely at his visitors; “now, a man up here couldn’t hit on one of us with a walking-stick if he tried all day. But it’s quite different down there! A walking-stick is not a stick by the aid of which people walk, but a walking-stick, that is, a stick that walks. It is a very strange insect, and is so exactly like the broken twig of a tree, with the little branches and all, that the most sagacious person can’t tell them apart, without seeing them walk. They are called ‘devil’s walking-sticks’ by some, and we flies think it very appropriate, for they are dreadful for us—that is, for Southern flies. The people will put a walking-stick in a room full of flies, and in a short time he will have killed them all! Think how dreadful!”