Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1892 — DEALING IN DRIED FLIES. [ARTICLE]

DEALING IN DRIED FLIES.

,A Central .American Specimen Whos Bite is Often Fatal. New York Tribune. “I jmport anything under the sun that Lean see any moneyiß,” said a downtovvn commission merchant in answer to a Tribute reporter the other day. “Brought in curious lately?” asked the inquisitive visitor. “Well, no bric-a-brac or curiosities of that sort. I deal in the plain, everyday, homely products of nature but I think I Have something here which will surprise you for all that. I What do you say to a box as big as a bale of hay, filled with compressed bodies of dried flies?” “Flies! exclaimed the reporter. ‘ ‘What kind? Spanish.„flies?’’. _. “Not particularly Spanish. Just Spanish-American. They’re from Mexico, and include any kind of fly that flies, and all kinds flies that fly, I should say, James,” to a boy, “bring a scoopful of those dried flies for this young man to write about. ” James went with a grin to a bale in the warehouse behind the office, and came back with a shining brass scoop running over with thin, dry, flat things, which, pn inspection, proved to be flies of all sizes and colors, with a sediment of broken wings and detached legs. “What are they for?” asked the reporter. “People buy them to feed to their singing birds. I sell them retail to the dealers,’who tell me they are especially good for some birds at any time, and for others at certain times of the year.” “I should say they would prove pretty expensive diet. Just think of the time and labor spent in catching so many flies!” “You forgot, young man, that a Mexican Indian is not a Knight of Labor. His time is about as valuable as that of a setting-hen. Flies are thicker, tao» in the tropical valleys of Mexico than you have any idea of—something like mosquitoes in a New Jersey swamp, or, shall we say, as thick as blanks in a lottery?” •‘Well;” continued the speaker, “the Mexican Indian who cap no longer sleep in his hut on account of the swarms of flies attracted by the filth which accumulates about his front door, sometimes is stung into a desire for revenge on his enemies. Revenge is sweet, and sweeter if there is any money in it. He goes to‘the woods and collects a number of green twigs of a certain tre<. These'he lays in a pile- bn the floor of his hut, with some’dry twigs under them. Then from another tree he gets a gum, which' he boils in to a thin syrup and spreads on the walls of his huft. The flies are attracted by its fragrant and far-reach-ing odor. They gather'to feed on it. When the hut is black with them the Indian sets fire? to the twigs on the floor and closes the apertures from the outside. The twigs emit an aromatic smoke which kins the flies,and they fall to the floor in thousands? Then the native’s wife dries them while he goes to sleep again.’’ In Canton, China, they name streets after the virtues.