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One half remained in my study, under a wire-gauze cover, with, small bunches of brushwood as supports; the other half were experiencing the vicissitudes of open-air life on the rosemaries in the enclosure. These preparations, which promised so well, did not provide me with the sight which I expected, namely, a magnificent exodus, worthy of the tabernacle occupied.
Photography gives us a striking proof of this. I have a score of females, all at the height of their splendour, in a wire-gauze cage in the open air. A tuft of thyme forms a grove in the centre of their establishment.
Several times over, the Fly leaves the bird's beak and comes to take a rest upon the wire-gauze, where she brushes her hind-legs one against the other. In particular, before using it again, she cleans, smooths and polishes her laying-tool, the probe that places the eggs. Then, feeling her womb still teeming, she returns to the same spot at the joint of the beak.
The pilgrims of the day were no less skilful at finding their mates than the pilgrims of the night. They laughed at all my tricks. Infallibly they found the prisoners in their wire-gauze prisons, no matter in what part of the house they were placed; they discovered them in the depths of a wall-cupboard; they divined the secret of all manner of boxes, provided these were not rigorously air-tight.
It looked rather like well if a swarm of bumblebees clung fiercely to a wire-gauze cage in which lay a silver minnow wrapped in match-sticks; and if the bees buzzed furiously and lifted it in a straining, clumsy, and altogether unreasonable manner; and if the appearance and the noise together were multiplied a good many thousands of times why it would present a great similarity to the take-off of the spaceship under Joe's command.
It clings to one's garments; it gets into the houses, and sticks to the carpets, often showing a trail of white footprints where a person has come in; it clogs the wire-gauze screens till they keep out the air as well as the flies; it fills the noses and the eyes of men and beasts. But its most curious effect is on the plants and flowers, to which it adheres, being a little gummy.
I got over the counter to a table behind a wire-gauze, and, like a numb fool, went over the Morse alphabet in my mind before touching the transmitting key, though I knew no code-words, and there, big enough to be seen, was the ABC dial, and who was to answer my message I did not ask myself: for habit was still strong upon me, and my mind refused to reason from what I saw to what I did not see; but the moment I touched the key, and peered greedily at the galvanometer-needle at my right, I saw that it did not move, for no current was passing; and with a kind of fright, I was up, leapt, and got away from the place, though there was a great number of telegrams about the receiver which, if I had been in my senses, I would have stopped and read.
To this assortment of disobliging creatures let us add two horrors: the silky Epeirus, whose disc-shaped scalloped abdomen is as big as a shilling, and the crowned Epeirus, which is horribly hairy and corpulent. I cannot doubt that the Mantis attacks such adversaries in a state of nature when I see it, under my wire-gauze covers, boldly give battle to whatever is placed before it.
The native spectacles give such a limited field of vision that it is impossible to use them in hunting; but the wire-gauze seems to be free from all these objections. A well-supplied expedition is provided with every kind of snow-goggles, as they are absolutely essential to the well being of the party.
Sir H. Davy had long ago shown that a safety lamp for illuminating mines, containing inflammable air, might be constructed of wire-gauze, alone, which prevented the flame within, however large or intense, from setting fire to the inflammable air without.
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