ck at home, just when the bird is being prepared for
roasting, he discovers that the promised dainty is alive with worms. O
horror! There is nothing for it but to throw the loathsome, verminous
thing away.

The bluebottle is the culprit here. Everybody knows it; and nobody
thinks of seriously shaking off her tyranny: not the retailer, nor the
wholesale dealer, nor the killer of the game. What is wanted to keep the
maggots out? Hardly anything: to slip each bird into a paper sheath. If
this precaution were taken at the start, before the flies arrive, any
game would be safe and could be left indefinitely to attain the degree
of ripeness required by the epicure's palate.

Stuffed with olives and myrtle berries, the Corsican blackbirds are
exquisite eating. We sometimes receive them at Orange, layers of them,
packed in baskets through which the air circulates freely and
each contained in a paper wrapper. They are in a state of perfect
preservation, complying with the most exacting demands of the kitchen.
I congratulate the nameless shipper who conceived the bright idea of
clothing his blackbirds in paper. Will his example find imitators? I
doubt it.

There is, of course, a serious objection to this method of preservation.
In its paper shroud, the article is invisible; it is not enticing; it
does not inform the passer by of its nature and qualities. There is one
resource left which would leave the bird uncovered: simply to case the
head in a paper cap. The head being the part most threatened, because of
the mucus membrane of the throat and eyes, it would be sufficient, as a
rule, to protect the head, in order to keep off the Flies and to thwart
their attempts.

Let us continue to study the bluebottle, while varying our means
of information. A tin, about four inches deep, contains a piece of
butcher's meat. The lid is not put in quite straight and leaves a
narrow slit at one point of its circumference, allowing, at most, of the
passage of a fine needle. When the bait begins to give off a gamy scent,
the mothers come. Singly or in numbers. They are attracted by the odor
which, transmitted through a thin crevice, hardly reaches my nostrils.

They explore the metal receptacle for some time, seeking an entrance.
Finding naught that enables them to reach the coveted morsel, they
decide to lay their eggs on the tin, just beside the aperture.
Sometimes, when the width of the passage allows of it, they insert the
ovipositor int