If _cadaver_ for corpse or carcase, why not _dies_ for day, which is just as good English? Or why not all Latin, with a glossary, or—better still—a translation? Footnote 13: Charles Janet, _Comptes Rendus_, 1897, pp. 583-5. Footnote 14: The American Naturalist, December, 1901. Footnote 15: Ibid., November, 1900. Footnote 16: The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine (quoted in the _American Naturalist_), August, 1896. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V From biped to quadruped—Flies that borrow wings—Sit-o’-my-head—A novel cradle—Flies that kill bees—Nature’s sadness—Consolations of the future—The Tachina fly and the locust. ALTHOUGH from the way in which the story is told, one might imagine that the fly here was merely enjoying a ride upon beetle-back, yet, from the efforts made by the latter to shake off its persecutors, and, still more, because these were of the female sex, the probability is that we have here to do with a case of parasitism. The fly, we may almost feel certain, was endeavouring to lay its eggs, and the reason why she took so long about it was that she required a certain spot upon the beetle in order to do so, and that the beetle’s efforts, though appearing futile, were more or less successful in guarding this spot. At any rate, if this was not the case here, it is so in many other instances, various flies being parasitic on various other insects. Not all of these are fatal to the object of their choice, which, if it affords them board as well as lodgings, may only do so to the extent of its blood. Such are the curious family of _Hippoboscidæ_, or Bird Ticks, who begin life with wings, but are so little appreciative of the powers which these confer that, having found the creature upon whom they elect to live, they bite them off, or otherwise wilfully rid themselves of them, after the manner of ants and termites, thus offering yet another example in the insect world of “one whose hand, Like the poor Indian, flung a pearl away Richer than all his tribe.” For what can be imagined more glorious to possess, speaking of physical attributes, than the power of flight?