intestine, and none in the fore -intestine. In Tephritis 

 conura , besides occur ing in the intestinal lumen, "bacteria 

 are regularly found in the oesophagus as far as the region 

 of the mouth opening and even in the proboscis. 



Stammer, in a study of 37 species of trypetids, showed 

 the presence of "bacteria in all cases, "but their manner of 

 distribution varied with the stage and genus of the host. 

 In the larvae and young adults the "bacteria occurred 

 diffusely or in clumps in the intestinal contents. In old 

 adults they were always present in enormous numbers in the 

 lumen of the intestine. In the case of Agriotes mancus, 

 Melampy and MacLeod (1938) found the greatest number of 

 "bacteria in the hind-intestine. A similar condition in 

 the petroleum fly, Psilopa petroli , has "been reported by 

 Thorpe (1930). 



The digestive tract of some arthropods, such as certain 

 members of the blood-sucking group, is sterile. In other 

 cases this sterility was localized to certain parts of the 

 tract. An example of this regional sterility is found in 

 blow-fly maggots used in the treatment of slow-healing 

 lesions such as those in osteomyelitis. In the larvae of 

 Luc ilia sericata , for instance, the bacteria taken in with 

 the food are destroyed in passing through the long, tubu- 

 lar- stomach of the maggot. Bacteria may be found abundantly 

 in the fore -stomach and occasionally in the intermediate 

 area and the hind- stomach; none survive as far as the 

 intestine (Robinson and Norwood, 193*0 • 



Duncan (1926) found the gut contents of Cimex lectular - 

 ius, Argas persicus , and Ornithodoros moubata to be con- 

 sistently sterile. He quotes Breinl as finding the gut 

 contents of lice to be invariably free of bacteria. Chap- 

 man (192*+) examined the digestive tract of the confused 

 flour beetle, Tribolium confusum Duv. , and found no living 

 organisms. Nut tall (Herms, 1939) found that the anthrax 

 bacillus died in the stomach of the bedbug in ^8 to 96 

 hours at 13° to 17° C. and in 2k to 28 hours at 37° C. , 

 although the feces of the bugs contained living bacilli 

 during the first 2k hours after feeding. 



During the years following 1906 considerable interest 

 was aroused in regard to the bacterial flora of the house- 

 fly (Musca domes tica ) as well as that of several species 

 of cockroaches (Longfellow, 1913; Barber, 191*0- Jackson 

 (1907) found as many as 100,000 human fecal bacteria in a 

 single fly, and recognized the fact that these bacteria 



