Further, the importance of life, the Saunterer believes, is the same for all species. An insect’s life means as much to it as a human’s life means to it. Put these two ideas together and you have William Oldys’ poem “The Fly”
Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
Drink with me, and drink as I;
Freely welcome to my cup,
Could’st thou sip, and sip it up;
Make the most of life you may,
Life is short and wears away.
Just alike, both mine and thine,
Hasten quick to their decline;
Thine’s a summer, mine no more,
Though repeated to threescore;
Threescore summers when they’re gone,
Will appear as short as one.
(William Oldys’s poem is quoted from the front matter of The Hungry Fly: A Physiological Study of the Behavior Associated with Feeding, by V. G. Dethier. Harvard University Press, 1976.)
For years we had undergraduates read Vincent Dethier’s book, To Know a Fly. Short and interesting, it painlessly taught students a dry subject, the hypothetico-deductive method of testing research hypotheses.
For a brief biography of William Oldys, click here. For a brief biography of Vincent Dethier, click here.
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