Strive to lash thy murmurous kin
(Vainly) from their dappled skin!
(Calverley; The Poet and the Fly.)
The common names for common insects in English are confusing. Not only are the same insects frequently known by different names on different sides of the Atlantic, but in many cases quite different insects—insects even belonging to different genera—are connoted by the same common name. In this respect matters are different in Germany: partly, perhaps, because the Germans on the whole are more scientifically inclined than we are, but partly, I suspect, because the German language lends itself more easily to express in one word—however long—the characteristics of any given insect.
Fig. 37.—The Stable-fly (Stomoxys calcitrans).
Fig. 38.—Stomoxya calcitrans × 5. Left antenna right × 1, resting position. (From Graham Smith.)
The genus Stomoxys is generally called in Great Britain the ‘stable-fly,’ but there are other ‘stable-flies.’ One of the commonest species of the genus is S. calcitrans, a two-winged muscid fly, not at all unlike the common domestic fly, Musca domestica; but there are one or two points which readily distinguish it from the commoner insect. To begin with: it has a hard, firm, chitinous, piercing proboscis, which when at rest stretches forward in front of the head, and when in action is pressed down at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the body; then, again, when resting, its wings diverge; those of the house-fly approximate. Like other flies, the Stomoxys varies somewhat in length, between 5·5-7 mm. The thorax has on its back four longitudinal, dark stripes, broken by a transverse suture; and, as the accompanying figure shows, the third of the great, long veins which traverse the wing is much more slightly bent than is the case in Musca domestica. Further, whereas the hinder edge of the eye in the house-fly is straight that of the stable-fly is concave, and the antennae bear hairs on the upper side only and not above and below as they do in the domestic fly.
