Housefly: viz., Musca domestica. We asked for specimens and enormous numbers of flies at once began to arrive at the Museum, alive and dead—and not a Housefly among them! So there was a terrible howdedo.
One of the correspondents was named “Masefield.” “Not Masefield the poet?” an excited dipterist asked. I reassured him.
“I’ve a good mind,” said Dr. ⸻, “to reply to this chap who’s so emphatic and give him a whigging—only he’s climbing down a bit in this second letter in today’s issue.” I strongly advocated clemency.
But still the affair goes on. Every morning sees more letters and more flies sent by all sorts of persons—we seem to have set the whole world searching for Houseflies—Duchesses, signalmen, farmers, footmen. Every morning each fresh batch of flies is mounted on pins by experts in the Setting Room, and an Assistant’s whole time is devoted to identifying, arranging, listing and reporting upon the new arrivals. At the last meeting of the Trustees a sample collection was displayed to show indubitably that the insects which hibernate in houses are not Musca domestica but Pollenia rudis. I understand the Trustees were appreciative.
An observant eye can now discover state visits to our dipterists from interested persons carrying their flies with them, animated discussions in the corridor, knots of excited enthusiasts in the Lavatory, in the Library, everywhere—and everywhere the subject discussed is the same: How does the Housefly pass the winter? As one passes one catches: “In Bakehouses certainly they are to be found but. …” or a wistful voice, “I wish I had caught that one in my bathroom three winters ago—I am certain it was a Housefly.” The Doctor himself—a gallant Captain—wanders from room to room stimulating his lieutenants to make suggestions, and examining every answer to the great interrogative on its merits, no matter how humble or insignificant the person who makes it. Then of an afternoon he will entirely disappear, and word goes round that he has set forth to examine a rubbish heap in Soho or Pimlico. As the afternoon draws to its close someone enquires if he has come back yet; next morning a second asks if I had seen him, then a third announces mournfully that he has just been holding conversation with him, but that nothing at all was found in the rubbish heap.
The great sensation of all occurred last week when somebody ran along the corridor crying that Mr. ⸻ had just found a Housefly in his room. We were all soon agog with the news, and the excited Captain was presently espied setting out for the scene of operations with a killing bottle and net. The insect was promptly impounded and identified as a veritable Musca domestica. A consultation being held to sit on the body, a lady finally laid information that two “forced Houseflies” hatched the day before had escaped from her possession. She suggested Mr. ⸻’s specimen was one of them.
“How would it get from your room to Mr. ⸻’s?” she was immediately asked. And breathless, we all heard her answer deliberately and quite audibly that the fugitive may have gone out of her window, up the garden and in by Mr. ⸻’s window, or it may have gone out of her door, up the corridor and in by his door. I wanted to know why it should have entered Mr. ⸻’s room as he is not a dipterist but a microlepidopterist. They looked at me sternly and we slowly dispersed.
This morning, the Dr. came to me with a newspaper cutting in his hand, saying, “The Times is behindhand.” He handed me the slip. It was a clipping from today’s Times about a sackful of flies which had been taken from Wandsworth Clock Tower in a state of hibernation.
“Behindhand?” I asked timidly, for I felt that all the story was not in front of me.
“Why, yes. Don’t you know?”
I knew nothing, but was prepared for anything.
“The Star, two days ago,” he informed me, “had a paragraph about this—headed ‘Tempus fugit’ ”—this last in a resentful tone as though the frivolous reporter were attempting to discredit our mystery.
There was a long pause. Neither of us spoke. Then he slowly said:
“I wonder why The Times is so behindhand. This is two days late.”
Hulloa, old friend: how are you? I mean my Diary. I haven’t written to you for ever so long, and my silence as usual indicates happiness. I have been passing through an unbroken succession of calm happy days, walking in the woods with my darling, or doing a little gentle gardening on coming home in the evening—and the War has been centuries away. Later on towards bedtime, E⸺ reads Richard Jefferies, I play Patience and Mrs. ⸻ makes garments for Priscilla.
The only troubles have been a chimney which smokes and a neighbour’s dog which barks at night. So to be sure, I have made port after storm at last—and none too soon. Today my cheerfulness has been rising in a crescendo till tonight it broke in such a handsome crest of pure delight that I cannot think of going to bed without recording it.
Pachmann
After sitting on the wall around the fountain in the middle of Trafalgar Square, eating my sandwiches and feeding the Pigeons with the crumbs, I listened for a moment to the roar of the traffic around three sides of the Square as I stood in the centre quite alone, what time one fat old pigeon, all unconcerned, was treading another. It was an extraordinary experience: motor horns tooted incessantly and it seemed purposelessly, so that one had the fancy that all London was out for a joyride—it was a great British Victory perhaps, or Peace Day.
Then walked down Whitehall to Westminster Bridge in time to see the 2 o’clock boat start upstream for Kew. I loitered by the old fellow with the telescope who keeps his pitch by Boadicea: I saw a piper of the Scots
