LIFE HISTORY 
15 
gots. There had been considerable rain and the piles 
were damp throughout. At one place there was a layer 
of six or eight inches of soggy barley over the ground, 
which was simply crawling with larvae. After six days 
of continued dry weather, however, they had practically 
all disappeared. 
An interesting experiment was made. One pound 
of material from each of the breeding places was taken 
to the laboratory and kept in screen-covered glass jars 
for ten days, with the following result: 
Stable manure. o adult flies issued 
Farm barn, horse end. .. . 77 “ “ “ 
Farm barn, mixed. 19 “ “ “ 
Farm barn, cow end. 1 “ fly “ 
Piggery manure pile.361 “ flies “ 
Spent hops. 129 “ “ “ 
Barley malt. 539 “ “ “ 
These results as recorded are very interesting and 
are probably in the main correct, although Doctor Or¬ 
ton states that the identification of species was by no 
means thorough and the determination of the house 
fly was made simply by observation of its size and gen¬ 
eral appearance and the characters of the mouth parts. 
It is possible that the stable fly (Muscina stabulans ) 
may have formed a portion at least of the flies bred 
from the spent hops and the barley malt. 
There is a statement in Taschenberg’s Praktische 
Insektenkunde to the effect that the female house fly 
lays its eggs not only upon spoiled and moist food¬ 
stuffs, decaying meat, meat broth, cut melons, dead 
animals, manure pits, manure heaps, but even in cus- 
