c. f. hodge] THE TYPHOID OR FILTH FLY 199 



and all live, the inhabitants of a city could not extricate them- 

 selves from under the mass of maggots and flies that would de- 

 velop. It is to get awake to a vivid realization of what this last, 

 or first, pair can do in the way of breeding filth flies that is the 

 whole battle. And everybody must be awake to it. The year 

 this awakening occurs will be the last year a filth fly is seen in the 

 country where it happens. 



Of course, there are other methods besides trapping of deal- 

 ing with flies. Of the various poisons, probably formalin — a tea- 

 spoonful to a teacup of water — is the best. The victims could not 

 be used as chick or bird food, and they might prove poisonous to 

 birds, if the method were generally used out of doors. I have 

 tried it enough to prove that it may do good work. A big bottle 

 filled with .the mixture and inverted • in a saucer, the whole 

 mounted in the most likely place in a stable, ought to prove effect- 

 ive in dry, hot weather, if no other water is accessible, and it 

 might be sweetened or mixed with milk or other foods to make 

 it more attractive. 



Possibly someone, fortunately situated, can try this experi- 

 ment more thoroughly and report results in The Review. 



This article is in no sense complete and is intended to be 

 merely a message from one corner of the battlefield, suggestive 

 of a line of attack that looks encouraging. The fight can only 

 go one way. The verdict against the filth fly is : "Murder in the 

 first degree". And in bulk of crime it is the most murderous 

 animal in the world. Let is be generally known that wherever 

 filth flies are there is filth and the likelihood of disease, and that 

 no clean people will buy food in filthy, fly-besmeared stores or 

 feel at home in fly-filled houses, and we will soon begin to live 

 in a decently clean country. I wish also to stimulate invention 

 toward making effective out-of-doors fly traps ; and also experi- 

 ments with different baits. If anyone can get ten traps, each one 

 baited with different material, and at night find all the flies in one 

 trap, I would be glad to know what bait was used in that trap. 



And, finally, let me ask : Has any farm home or any town 

 or community solved this problem of making and keeping itself 

 flyless? If so, may we not have the story of how it was done 

 told in The Nature Study Review? 



