Observations on a mode practised in Italy of excluding the common house-fly from apartments / by William Spence.

  • William Spence
Date:
[1836]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on a mode practised in Italy of excluding the common house-fly from apartments / by William Spence. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Verna, I forget which,) near Florence, the monks of which assured him of its efficacy, and afterwards by an artist at Rome, who warmly expatiated on the important advantage which it conferred on him of being able to work in his studio with open windows, and yet free from the personal annoyance of flies, and the equally great one of their settling on his newly painted pictures. Furnished with these hints,my friend, whose practical good sense and habit of observation turns every new fact to profit, lost no time in having thread-nets made, and adapting them to his windows, (which, as in Italy generally, are what we call French windows, opening interiorly, so as when thrown back to leave the whole space free,) with the completely satisfactory result already mentioned, and this with the least possible expense, trouble, or inconvenience, the cost of a thread-net being a mere trifle, and all that is necessary being to fix it as soon as the flies begin to be troublesome, across the outside opening of the window, where it neither intercepts the air nor view, and where it is suffered to remain until the approach of winter, and the consequent disappearance of the flies. It is not even necessary to be at the expense of an actual net, for if small nails be fixed all round the window-frame at the distance of about an inch from each other, and threads be then stretched across both verti¬ cally and horizontally, the apparatus will be equally effectual. Here, however, it is necessary to state a remarkable fact which my friend discovered in the course of his observations, namely, that for this plan of excluding flies to succeed, it is essential that the light enter the room on one side of it only, for if there be a thorough light either from an opposite or side window, the flies pass through the net without scruple. This circumstance, though not at all ma¬ terially lessening the value of the practice, as rooms are usually (or may be) lighted from one side only, must yet be borne in mind in investigating the subject. Before we proceed to speculate on any extraordinary fact, it is essential to be certain of its accuracy, and not only did the result of numerous minute inquiries which I made of my informant, who, though no entomologist, is a very careful observer, convince me of the correctness of his statements, but they have been since amply confirmed in all points by other intelligent friends resident in Italy, who inform me that they have repeatedly seen this mode of ex¬ cluding flies adopted with perfect success. One of them added that it is not even necessary to have a net, or threads arranged both ver¬ tically and horizontally so as to resemble one, but that if threads be stretched in a horizontal direction only, across the openings of the windows, at the distance of about an inch from each other, this
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