THE DANGER OF FLIES 729 



latter. Sanitation might do much to destroy the former. In 

 well-administered towns slaughterhouses no longer " fill our 

 butchers' shops with large blue flies"; they have been replaced 

 by abattoirs under proper inspection. Stables should also be 

 segregated or controlled. The practice of backing the mansions 

 of Berkeley Square by stable yards should either be given up, 

 or the manure heaps in which the flies breed should be under 

 cover so close as to prevent the access of the fly. A layer of 

 lime spread over the manure effectively prevents the fly laying. 

 Creolin, in its cheap commercial form, is also recommended, 

 sprayed over the manure heaps every two or three days. It 

 not only deters flies from ovipositing, but should they succeed 

 in doing so it kills the resulting larvae. 1 



Ross has shown us how to clear Ismailia of malaria ; the 

 Americans have rid Havana for the first time in a century of 

 yellow fever ; the same could be done with flies if only the 

 people liked to have it so. The motor car, with all its destruc- 

 tion of nervous tissue, its prevention of sleep, its danger to life 

 and to limb, has one great merit — it affords no nidus for flies. 



1 Theobald, Second Report on Eco?iomic Entomology, British Museum (Natural 

 History), London, 1904, p. 125. 



