The light, like truth, he does exceedingly rejoice in, and does behave himself honestly therein and civilly. Yea, the fly does so covet the light that many times with the spider or spinner he loses his life for his pains. At night he goes to rest (as honest folk use to do) and makes no noise. He does nothing in the dark, counting it unbeseeming for him to do anything privately, or to be guilty of that fact which if done in the light would be a disgrace and disparagement to him. I can assure you it is no little understanding that he hath also, whereby he does escape the wiles of his treacherous enemy, the spider. For he marks him as he lies in wait for him and looks upon him, and so declines his force lest he should be taken in his net and be destroyed. I must not speak of his prowess and valor, for in that he may seem to surpass man himself. Homer, the prince of poets, when he did endeavor to set forth and commend the gallantry of the bravest noble man, doth not compare his strength to that of the lion, leopard, wild boar or the like, but to the undaunted courage and confidence of the fly, who, although he be never so often repulsed and beaten off, comes on again, and bites as close as he did before. Yea, such a strength he has with him, that he will not wound the skin of a man only, but of an ox or horse; yea the elephant also, when he gets between the wrinkles of his skins, he will shrewdly vex him, and according to the bigness of his snout, gash and wound him. When he bites, ’tis not out of rusticity or clownishness to get blood only, but by way of love and humanity, and for that reason especially he seizes upon the fairest. Yea, what a pretty thing it is to see a company of flies flying to and again playing and sporting one with another, and hanging upon a thread as it were dancers on the ropes? Moreover, as the cleanly horse does, she lays her ordure all in one place, so that upper wainscot and ceiling of the rooms where they use are all full of great spots which they make on that occasion, which is an argument that they are not altogether void of some kind of memory also. Tzetzes [a 12th century Byzantine poet] says moreover that such is their love to those of their own kind that they bury their dead corpses. Aelian [Claudius Aelianus, a Roman writer] does as much discommend them as Lucian [a Greek writer] commends them. And he inveighs against their procacity [insolence] and sauciness, which is such that being driven away never so often, they notwithstanding return with fresh assaults. He blames them likewise for their impudence, in that they couple in public, and know no end of their venery almost. Neither do they as the cock, when he once hath trodden presently falls off, but is born upon the back of the female a long while, and she carries him; they fly away together into the air, yet are they not sundered with flight. Learned Pennius [Thomas Penny, a sixteenth-century English physician and entymologist on whom Moffett relies heavily] caught two flies in the act, and shut them up in a box, and the next day found them together still in the same posture, which does much confirm what Aristotle, Aelian, and Niphus [Agostino Nifo, an Italian philosopher] say, to wit, that flies do continue very long in the act of generation. Plutarch says that the mouse and the fly are indocile and unteachable creatures, who although they use the company of men daily are by no means tamed, neither do they show the least courtesy, or the least show of a grateful mind for what they receive of any man. Both of them are by nature very suspicious, always fearful of treachery, afraid to be caught. She [the fly] is altogether idle and careless, feeding upon the labors of others, and wherever she comes she has a full table. For her the goats are milked; and the bee bestows her pains as much for her as for any other. The cooks provide messes for her, the confectioners sweet-meats, the apothecary syrups, and these she tastes before kings, and walking all over the table she feasts herself with them in their company, as also with all other whatsoever …

Well therefore did nature take care that she should have no certain place to dwell in, as honest folks have, but should wander up and down, where she could get her a lodging and traveling harbor. But in impudence she goes beyond any beggar whatsoever, because they having had once a denial are therewith satisfied, but this beggar will take no answer, but will fill his unprofitable gut with the best cheer in the house whether the master will or no. … To this so pestilent a little beast nature (as meet it should be) hath denied long life therefore. For as soon as winter begins to come on, the greatest part of them expire; and those that escape starving, in clefts, walls, hollow places, ovens and such like, they lie all the while weak and languishing, and not able to hold out another winter. All of them are begotten of filth and nastiness, to which they most willingly cleave, and resort especially to such places which are so unclean and filthy. Unquiet are they, importunate, hateful, troublesome, tumultuous, bold, saucy.