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This webpage reproduces a section of Star Names Their Lore and Meaning by Richard Hinckley Allen as reprinted in the Dover edition, 1963 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know!

 p291  Musca Australis vel Indica, the Southern, or Indian, Fly,

the French Mouche Australe ou Indienne, the German Südliche Fliege, and the Italian Mosca Australe, lies partly in the Milky Way, south of the Cross, and east of the Chamaeleon.

This title generally is supposed to have been substituted by La Caille, about 1752, for Bayer's Apis, the Bee; but Halley, in 1679, had called it Musca Apis; and even previous to him, Riccioli catalogued it as Apis seu Musca. Even in our day the idea of a Bee prevails, for Stieler's Planisphere of 1872 has Biene, and an alternative title in France is Abeille.

The modern Chinese translate Bayer's title as Meih Fung, and have so known it since the 16th century.

Julius Schiller united it with the Bird of Paradise and the Chamaeleon as mother Eve.

Gould assigned to it 75 stars, of magnitudes from 2.9 to 7; these culminating, with the Cross, about the middle of May.

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