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ELECTRICAL RECORDING OF DRINKING BEHAVIOR BY THE HOUSEFLY, MUSCA DOMESTICA AUSTIN HUGHES* Introduction (and Invocation) Be with me, muse of physiology, patron of cytochromes and ATP, whose altar on the axon hillock stands, worshiped by Japanese widi nimble hands. Be with me, muse of strict reductionism and, as a beam of light splits in a prism, split my conceptions till there's nothing left of broader scope diat the synaptic cleft. Be with me, too, you ethological muses, less strict (and thus more open to abuses) but of a more complaisant frame of mind; grant me án eloquence subtle and refined, conforming to the task I now must try: to tell the story of die thirsty fly. Grant me die power to soar on wings of song (and haltères too, of course) above the dirong: to tell the whole truth, holding nothing back about the dipterous dipsomaniac. Among die burning questions of our age pondered through many ia closely reasoned page in/, ofInsect Phys. and Biol. BuIL, "How many drinks until a housefly's full?" is yet unsolved, though not for want of flies, but only through fatigue of human eyes that try to watch and human hands to note each time the housefly fills its greedy throat. Musca, as all agree, has a "sweet tooth." ("Sweet labellum" is closer to the truth.) As Greenberg (1959) has shown, •Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47401. Permission to reprint may be obtained only from the author. 502 J Austin Hughes · DrinkingBehavior by the Housefly flies of each sex, together or alone, will daily sip on sugared HzO; how many times they sipped, he did not know. As so he left die problem in frustration for us of a more daring generation. In vain men sought for 20 wretched years (a period of bitterness and tears); researchers in despair took their own lives, drank gin, smoked marijuana, beat their wives. Some tried upon the flies a watch to keep, but every one was overcome by sleep, before die clock had 'round its circuit sped; and still die question was unanswered. Then I in one bright flash of inspiration (brought on by several weeks of sleep privation) arose and wandered' as if in a trance to the library, wherein by merest chance, I bumped against a musty shelf and found back issues of a mustyjournal, bound. Opening one I found an epochal '56 paper by Dethier et al. I gasped to think that what Dethier and crew had done with Phormia might work here too! As when a quail (Coturnix) kept on wire for weeks and weeks of unfulfilled desire, of lust for dust, at last espies a patch, ruffles his feathers, and begins to scratch, then stretches out at glorious ease to bask; with no less glee I plunged into my task. MateriaL· and Methods Trailing like strands of the Medusa's hair, two wires that picked up A.C. from the air were joined to a glass tube, which had been lined with a conductive paint, die whole designed so that, when a fly's beak was interposed into die tube, a circuit would be closed. In turn, this linked up with a physiograph in such a way (I ask you not to laugh) that when the fly's proboscis hit the drink the fact was noted by a stroke of ink. I found some flies of laboratory breed (not known for vigor, brains, or cruising speed, Perspectives in Biology andMediane, 26, 3 · Spring 1983 \ 503 but easily kept, compared to Vertebrata) and sat back smugly, waiting for my data. Results At first the damn thing worked. I was elated, knowing that toward the uninitiated the reigning electronic gods are stern. (I had, I soon found out, a lot to learn.) But as the gods appeared to be so kind, plans for experiments o'erwhelmed my mind. As, would it raise the rate of fly potations, if sucrose were in lower concentrations? I even hoped (most glorious of all) that I might test response to mannitol. But then, alas, before I could get started, events transpired that left me broken-hearted. No more were all things rosy as at...

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