THE BITING HOUSE FLY 
213 
inally an European species and has spread by the help 
of commerce to many parts of the world. It occurs 
all over North America and is also to be found in Cen¬ 
tral and South America. It is also found in Australia, 
China, India, and the Canary Islands. 
The writer has reared the biting house fly from cow 
manure and from horse manure. I judge from the 
fact that it is attracted to human excreta that it may 
become a carrier of intestinal disease. It has been 
reared from sheep’s dung and from warm decaying 
vegetable refuse, especially from piles of fermenting 
lawn grass. 
Lucien Iches, in the Bulletin de la Societe Nationale 
d’Acclimatation de France, March, 1909, published a 
very interesting article on Stomoxys calcitrans and Ar¬ 
gentine cattle, giving the results of a brief investigation 
made by him in 1908 in the province of Santa Fe, Ar¬ 
gentina. The biting flies swarmed on a large estate in 
almost incredible numbers. The cattle were driven 
nearly crazy by them. Certain valuable Durham bulls 
which were observed were covered with the flies. They 
had lost their hair in large spots and the skin was 
cracking. 
Monsieur Iches naturally sought at once for the prin¬ 
cipal breeding places of the flies, and found them to be 
in the stacks of debris from the threshing of wheat and 
flax. Larvae and puparia were found by the millions 
in the lower portions of these piles of straw, where 
some fermentation had already begun. The sensible 
measure which he recommended was to have this de- 
