The Two-winged Flies 



Most abundant, most wide-spread, and most important to us of all the 

 Muscid flies are the common house-flies. They belong with some other 

 similar forms to the subfamily Muscinae. A number of species may be 

 found in houses, but the true house-fly, Musca domestica (Fig. 483), is by 

 far the most numerous. Dr. Howard, government entomologist, who has 

 paid special attention to the life of house-flies and mosquitoes, because of 

 their dangerous disease-germ carrying habits, says that house-flies undoubtedly 

 contribute materially in the dissemination of infectious diseases by carrying 

 germs in the dirt and filth on their feet, collected during their pilgrimages 

 to the contents of cuspidors, slop-pails, and closets. He advocates a definite 

 crusade against the house-fly like the one now being undertaken in this 

 country against the mosquito. 



FIG. 485. 



FIG. 486. 



FIG. 485. Larva of house-fly, Musca domestica. (After Howard and Marlatt; three 



times natural size.) 

 FIG. 486. Pupa, in puparium, of house-fly, Musca domestica. (After Howard and 



Marlatt; three times natural size.) 



The eggs of the house-fly are laid in horse-manure, occasionally in other 

 excrementitious or decaying matter. Each female lays about one hundred eggs. 

 These eggs hatch in six or seven hours, and the slender pointed white larva? 

 called maggots (Fig. 485) lie in their plentiful food-supply for the five or six dajs 

 necessary for their full growth. They pupate within the last larval skin, which 



thickens and turns brown at the time of pupation 

 (Fig. 486). The pupal stage lasts five days, and 

 then the fly issues. Its food is liquid and taken 

 up by lapping. The " house -fly" that bites is 

 not the true house-fly, but usually the fiercely 

 piercing stable-fly, Stomoxys calcitrant, another 

 member of the subfamily, which looks much like 

 Musca and which is a not infrequent visitor in 

 the house. 



FIG. 487. A stable-fly, Sto- This stable-fly and another ally of the house- 

 wary* calcitrans. (Three fly ; called the horn-fly, are great pests of stock, 

 times natural size.) ,-,-,, , T7 - , , . /T ^- 00% , . , 



The horn-fly, Hamatolna serrata (Fig. 488), which 



gets its popular name from the habit of clustering, when not feeding, on the 

 bases of the horns of cattle, is a European insect that was accidentally brought 

 to this country in 1886 or 1887. 



It quickly established itself, and in two years had spread over the eastern 



