in Zoology, a large order of insects, the distinguishing characteristic of which is, that their wings are transparent. By this they are distinguished from beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers, &c. Flies are subdivided into those which have four, and those which have two wings. Of those with four wings there are several genera or kinds; as the ant, the bee, the ichneumon, &c. Of those with two wings, there are likewise several kinds, as the gad-fly, gnat, house-fly, &c. For their classification and natural history, see Entomology.

House Fly. See Musca.

Pelluculent Fly. See Abyssinia.

mechanics, a cross with leaden weights at its ends; or rather, a heavy wheel at right angles to the axis of a windlass, jack, or the like; by means of which, the force of the power, whatever it is, is not only preserved, but equally distributed in all parts of the revolution of the machine. See Mechanics.

FLIES for Fishing. See Fishing Fly.

Vegetable Fly, a curious natural production chiefly found in the West Indies. "Excepting that it has no wings, it resembles the drone both in size and colour more than any other British insect. In the month of May it buries itself in the earth, and begins to vegetate. By the latter end of July, the tree is arrived at its full growth, and resembles a coral branch; and is about three inches high, and bears several little pods, which dropping off become worms, and from thence flies, like the British caterpillar."

Such was the account originally given of this extraordinary production. But several boxes of these flies having been sent to Dr Hill for examination, his report was this: "There is in Martinique a fungus of the clavaria kind, different in species from those hitherto known. It produces foiboles from its sides; I call it therefore clavaria foibolifera. It grows on putrid animal bodies, as our fungus ex pede equino from the dead horse's hoof. The cicada is common in Martinique; and in its nympha state, in which the old authors call it tettigometra, it buries itself under dead leaves to wait its change; and when the season is unfavourable, many perish. The seeds of the clavaria find a proper bed on this dead insect, and grow. The tettigometra is among the cicade in the British museum; the clavaria is just now known. This is the fact, and all the fact; though the untaught inhabitants suppose a fly to vegetate, and though there is a Spanish drawing of the plant's growing into a trifoliate tree, and it has been figured with the creature flying with this tree upon its back." See Edward's Gleanings of Natural History.

Fly-Boat, or Flight, a large flat-bottomed Dutch vessel, whose burden is generally from 690 to 1200 tons. It is distinguished by a very high stern, resembling a Gothic turret, and by very broad buttocks below.

Fly-Catcher, in Zoology. See Muscipara.

Venus's Fly-Trap, a kind of sensitive plant. See Dionaea Muscipula, Botany Index.

Fly-Tree, in Natural History, a name given by the common people of America to a tree, whose leaves, they say, at a certain time of the year produce flies. On examining these leaves about the middle of summer, the time at which the flies used to be produced, there are found on them a sort of bags of a tough matter, of about the size of a filbert, and of a dusky greenish colour. On opening one of these bags with a knife, there is usually found a single full-grown fly, of the gnat kind, and a number of small worms, which in a day or two more have wings, and fly away in the form of their parent. The tree is of the mulberry kind, and its leaves are usually very largely stocked with these insect bags; and the generality of them are found to contain the insects in their worm state; when they become winged, they soon make their way out. The bags begin to appear when the leaves are young, and afterwards grow with them; but they never rumple the leaf or injure its shape. They are of the kind of leaf-galls, and partake in all respects, except size, of a species we have frequent on the large maple, or, as it is called, the sycamore.