2O The Book of Bugs. 



If you have not a very steady stomach perhaps you had 

 better skip a little here. As a general thing I avoid the 

 tragic and revolting, and as a matter of principle I believe 

 that in a fiction story She ought to get Him and He ought 

 to inherit the money, and the, two of them ought to live 

 happily ever after. But I think I have noticed that about 

 once in so often we crave a sad and heart-breaking end- 

 ing and hanker to be told something grewsome and horri- 

 ble. I feel sure that what I am about to relate will 

 satisfy that hankering for at least two \veeks. But if you 

 like, you may omit the next paragraph. I shan't feel 

 hurt if you do. 



A Mr. M. E. Hudson of Mapleton, Kansas, called a 

 physician on August 22, 1882, and complained of a 

 peculiar sensation at the base of the nose and along the 

 orbital processes, followed by inordinate sneezing and an 

 excruciating pain in the forehead and left upper jaw. 

 In a week later he was dead, after having suffered tortures. 

 After death it was found that all the tissues covering the 

 bones of the spinal column had been gnawed away and the 

 vertebrae exposed. The roof of the mouth caved in with 

 the slightest pressure of the finger. The bones of the 

 nose were loose and only held in place by the muscles. 

 What caused it? A screw-worm fly laid its eggs in his 

 nostrils while he slept, and upwards of 300 maggots were 

 hatched there. There are many such cases known to 

 medical history and only one reported recovery. 



All over. You may come in now. 



It is almost impossible to compute the losses caused 

 by the various kinds of flies that attack domestic animals, 

 but if we accept the estimate of Professor Herbert Os- 

 bonrne, that one species of bot-fly and that the easiest 

 controlled causes an average loss of $2.50 a head to the 

 cattle of the United States in injury to hides, beef, milk, 



