An old lady who swallowed a fly

Not real.

I just finished reading to Ben, my son, "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" book. It's an American folk poem, first heard in the 1940's, says the book. On the back cover, there are pictures - drawings, not photos - of 20+ types of flies (or insects with "fly" in their names).

I didn't realize there are so many types of flies, though wikipedia says the true flies are those with two (or single pair of) wings.

Among those, house fly is what we're most familiar with. What I found interesting about house flies are (1) the female can lay up to 8,000 eggs which hatch within a day -- no wonder there are so many flies around, (2) normally the female mates only once, storing the sperm to use it repeatedly for several sets of eggs, (3) flies continually preen themselves, cleaning their eyes with their forelegs and dusting off their legs by rubbing them together, and (4) they are capable of carrying over 100 diseases.

Another one that the picture looks interesting is robber fly. Red eyes, big and dotted upper body. It looks mean (picture, robber fly with housefly prey, from cirrusimage.com).

clipped from www.insects.org

Robber flies are not to be trifled with. Capable of immobilizing bees, wasps and other insects larger than itself, robberflies catch their prey in mid air. As with other aerial predators, robberflies have excellent vision, characterized by two conspicuous compound eyes. The mouthparts of this family have been modified to a stabbing proboscis. Flies were revered by the ancient Egyptians who awarded a military honor in the form of a golden fly pendant.

The poem itself:

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly
I don't know why she swallowed a fly - perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and wiggled and tiggled inside her;
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a bird;
How absurd to swallow a bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a cat;
Fancy that to swallow a cat!
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady that swallowed a dog;
What a hog, to swallow a dog;
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a cow,
I don't know how she swallowed a cow;
She swallowed the cow to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse...
She's dead, of course!