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Show i OR more than 33 years Fred Enock. a London I man of science, has I . been scouring square J mile upon square mile ICv ' England with a cam-&J cam-&J brie net no bigger than f T your hat, looking for VMrV an 'nsect 'esa than one- r twentieth of an Inch "" long. So scarce are some kinds of these insects that there are said to be only two in every 640 acres, and the finding of them is so rare a feat that one must go back 60 years to read of a previous catch. Now Enock has landed one, and he is the happiest man in England. Enock Is a fellow of no fewer than four scientific societies and a most learned looking man, with a tall dome of a forehead. He taJks like an annual report of the Linnean society. so-ciety. The insects have ben popularly popu-larly christened fairy flies, and, until un-til Enock fell in love with the shape of one under the microscope 33 years ago, men of science had considered them of not eneugh Importance to waste time over. And to this day Enock remains almost the sole authority author-ity upon their playful habits. Surely much ado was never made aoout less. Here ib a man with a more than ordinary brain who spends almost two score of precious years looking for a few insects that will never be of any possible' use to humanity hu-manity or probably to science, and the total result of his long search could be put in a' peanut shell. Of course, he has done other work; he is a mounter of insects for collectors, and he tells me that according to accurate ac-curate records he has kept he has mounted no fewer than 200,000 specimens. speci-mens. In addition, he is a lecturer, in popular style, on natural history subjects, and he travels about England Eng-land explaining to the rising generation, genera-tion, the evolution of the spider, the wasp, the bee, the butterfly and his lifelong friend, the fairy fly. But how many valuable hours have been stolen stol-en from more productive fields of effort ef-fort to spend with his net, his bottles and his microscope on the invisible trail of the elusive fairy fly only Enock knows. If It were possible to calculate the amount of money wasted wast-ed by him In his strange quest, It would probably be found that his fairy flies are worth many times their weight In radium. It will be entertaining en-tertaining to let Enock tell of his queer search in his own words, but you must remember that when he speaks of fairy flies as the most beautiful insects In the world he Is like a fond parent describing his favorite child, arid prone to exaggeration. exaggera-tion. "My introduction to the fairy fly," be said, "was at a meeting of the Royal Microscopical society of 1878. A species no larger than a fiftieth of an Inch entangled in a spider's web was shown to us, and I immediately lost my heart to it. It had four wings exquisitely shaped and margined with hairs. I determined that I would search out the HTe history of these insects, and thus began my long quest for some of the rarer species. "At that time practically nothing was known of them. They were so small that they had quite escaped the attention of scientists. The first mention men-tion of them was in 1797, and then nothing was heard of them for more than 80 years. I soon found out that they belonged to the Bame order as the honey bee and the wasp sort of poor relations, so. to speak. In size they vary from a twentieth to a ninetieth nine-tieth of an Inch In length. Figures as small as that convey no impression impres-sion to the ordinary mind. Perhaps it might, be better if I say that a dozen doz-en of these beauties could walk abreast through an ordinary pinhole. They search out the eggs of certain other Insects and in them lay their own, thus destroying the host eggs. Each species has a different kind of host egg, and in no circumstance will they lay their eggs In any other way. "During the 30 odd years I have been searching for these flies. I have discovered eight new genera and at least 150 new species. For the last four years I bad the assistance of Charles Owen Wnterhouse. formerly a member of the staff of the Natural History Museum, at South Kensington, Kensing-ton, who, like myself, became fascinated fasci-nated by the marvelous beauty of these fairy flies when seen under the microscope, and decided to devote his time to searching them out." One can picture these two men, both hovering around the middle 60s, armed with cambric nets, a collection collec-tion of empty glass tubes and microscopes, micro-scopes, both possessed of the enthusiasm enthusi-asm that knows no discouragement, tramping over the fields of England day In and day out, content if once in a blue moon either caught a new species. Enock gave to the writer a description de-scription of probably the greatest moment In his life, when he discovered discov-ered In the bottom of his net the male fairy fly of a certain species, for which be had been searching patiently patient-ly for the whole 30 od() years of his acquaintance with the insects. Females Fe-males he had landed before, but the male was so rare that 60 years had elapsed since anyone had put one between be-tween glasses and submitted it to the prying eye of the microscope. "Waterhouse and I had been sweeping sweep-ing Burnham Beeches with our nets all one Saturday afternoon," he said. "I intended going home for dinner, and as Waterhouse was staying out we parted, he going to the west and I staying in the field. I determined to have a few more sweeps before leaving, and at their conclusion I examined ex-amined the bottom of my net with my microscope: I became dizzv with excitement when I saw there thfi very Insect I had gii'en more than 30 years of my life to find the male of a rare species of which there are only two in every square mile. In honor of King George I immediately christened christen-ed it Mymar regalis. In my excitement, excite-ment, however, I almost lost the treasure. He, hopped away, and although al-though I immediately closed the net I thought I had lost him. During the next few minutes I was almost dead with anxiety, but an examination soon convinced me that I still had him captive and in a few seconds he was safely bottled. ' "Wonderful as this catch was. it was rendered more wonderful still by the fact that in the same net I discovered dis-covered a species of a minute insect of which there was no record of any previous catch for 90 years. I soon had It. too, safely In a bottle and started as fast as my old legs would carry me after Waterhouse to tell him the great news. I ran and walked walk-ed four miles that day before I finally final-ly found him. 'What do you think this 1b?' I asked him. trying to remain re-main as calm as possible and show Ing him the Mymar regalis. As soon as he realized, he offered me his con gratulations. Then I showed him mj other find and there were more con gratulations. That was a day to re member all the rest of one's life. "Rut these fairy flies are not all as scarce as the Mymar regalis. Far from It. Despite the fact that they have been overlooked by the great body of naturalists, they are to be found in every garden and on every window In houses, in conservatories and in trains. When I was younger and my sight was better I used to catch them with my hands as they flew, like tiny specks of gold, across a sunbeam. One or tne most pieui..-ful pieui..-ful species, that known popularly as the black fairy fly, I have captured in hundreds in the early spring, close up to the horizontal sash bar of an east window. At other times they are to be found in large numbers running up and down grass stems in search of their host eggs. "Even after spending the better part of my life in the study of these insects in-sects I am compelled to acknowledge that I know very little of them. Of the 21 genera now comprised in the British fairy flies, I have been able to work oit the life history of but two. Of course, I know considerable about others of the remaining nineteen, nine-teen, and year by year I am adding links that I hope will eventually complete com-plete the life cycles. "The common black fairy fly lays Its eggs In those of a small water beetle, found on stems of plants below be-low the water line. In order, therefore, there-fore, to get to its host eggs this fairy fly must dive beneath the water. The Alaptus, another common species, searches for the eggs of a fly resembling- the common green fly, the pest f the gardener. The tiny Camp-topeia Camp-topeia papavis, one of the smallest of fairy, flies, sometimes appears in hundreds hun-dreds on windows, and at my home in Woking I have captured no fewer than 600, all female, at one time. "One of the most extraordinary little' lit-tle' Insects is that known as Cara-phractus Cara-phractus cinctus. It is aquatic In its habits, using its delicately fringed wings for 'flying' through the water. Its legs are kept perfectly still during the operation and the fly progresses with a jerky, zigzag motion. "These insects appear In early spring some of them in 'March and I have captured them as late as December. De-cember. They are difficult to breed because of the difficulty of discovering discover-ing their host eggs. "Of all Insects, that popularly called call-ed battledore wing fly is without doubt the most wonderfully formed and most beautiful I have ever looked upon. It is less than one-twentieth of an Inch' in length, with Its two front wings shaped like long-handled battledores, battle-dores, surrounded by a fringe of long hairs. The hind wings, so tiny that even under a powerful microscope the ordinary observer does not see them, are armed with three minute hooks on the upper edge, which fix into grooves on the upper wings and so form a strengthening bracket. My first capture of the battledore wing fly was made 33 years ago and It was only last year, after constant efforts, that I was able to breed It." Speaking generally. Knock had high praise for the work of the bureau of entomology of the United States department de-partment of agriculture. He constantly con-stantly corresponds with Dr. Leland O. Howard, its famous chief, for whom he has a great admiration. "If we only had the brains in this country that you have In the TJnited States." remarked Enock. sorrowfully, "we might be able to give something worth while to science. We know absolutely ab-solutely nothing about the life history his-tory of the majority of crop pests, and there is no organization such as your bureau of entomology to advise the farmers of Great Britain. The trouble Is there is no money available avail-able for field work, and when a government gov-ernment grant is made the money is spent In some ineffective way that Is of absolutely no practical use to tho farmer. Some day I suppose we shall wake up." |