Rural School Leaflet ii8i 



but if only twenty-five individuals from the ioo to 150 eggs laid should 

 reach maturity in each generation, the descendants of each wintering 

 female by the close of the sixth generation would be over one hundred 

 thousand. This explains why house-flies may be so abundant during 

 the months of August and September. That they usually are so abundant 

 is due to the fact that no care whatsoever is taken to have all the piles 

 of horse manure removed during the summer so that there will be no 

 substance on which the female flies can lay their eggs. 



The presence of flies in the home is a great nuisance, but this is the 

 least important fact connected with them. The adult fly visits all sorts 

 of filth, manure, slop-pails, pig-pens, and decaying animals and plants, 

 among which it finds its food. Unless windows and doors are properly 

 screened, flies are constantly passing from this filth to the kitchen and 

 dining-room, walking over the food. In passing over the filth, thousands of 

 bacteria cling to the hairs on their bodies and legs and to the pads on their 

 toes. A part of these bacteria are left later on our food or washed off in the 

 milk that we drink. If there should be among the bacteria those producing 

 typhoid fever, tuberculosis, or any one of the numerous bacterial diseases 

 to which man is subject, the possibility of his taking the disease would 

 be very great. The house-fly is so important a factor in the carrying 

 of typhoid fever that an eminent entomologist urges that in the future 

 this insect should be known as the typhoid fly. 



MAY BEETLES* 



Glenn W. Herrick 



Most of us are familiar with the somewhat large brown beetles that come 

 buzzing in through our open windows in May and June. They blunder 

 against the wall, fall on the floor with a thud, and in a moment we hear 

 their tiny claws scratching on the wall as they try to climb up the side 

 of the room. These beetles are the parents of what are generally known 

 as white-grubs. White-grubs live in the soil, preferably in grass fields 

 such as old meadows and pastures. Here they live on the roots of 

 grasses and sometimes cause severe injury, especially in meadows and 

 lawns. 



The beetles and their habits. — There are at least nine species of May 

 beetles the larva? of which, known as white-grubs, are injurious to certain 

 farm crops. The beetles themselves are mahogany-brown in color and 

 vary from one half inch to over an inch in length. A May beetle has a 

 pair of hard, brown wing covers on the back, which meet in a 

 straight line down the middle and partly cover the sides of the body 

 Underneath the wing covers is a pair of thin, translucent wings 



* May beetles are biting insects. 



