218



Dr. Maurice Amsler,



Having obtained your bait, merely place it in a large earthen¬

ware pan in an exposed situation out of the reach of rain. As soon

as it is sufficiently blown, as evidenced by numbers of small white

grains (the eggs of the blow-fly), cover up your vessel with some fly-

proof fabric such as canvas or muslin ; the gentles or larvas appear

in from one to three days according to the temperature, and their

growth can be retarded or accelerated by keeping them in the shade

or sun. I often use an old garden frame to hurry things up when

getting short of gentles. A few handsful of sawdust thrown on top

of the blown meat gives the larvae a welcome cover and obviates

much of the smell; at the end of four to seven days the gentles will

be large enough to use, but must first be scoured.


All one has to do is to put a piece of fine wire-netting or a

^-in. sieve on top of the pan, which is next inverted over a tray

containing meal, bran, or “ toppings ” ; in a very short time you

will have thousands of gentles free from all obnoxious or putrid

meat, many, however, remaining in the meat which can be allowed

to grow to a large size.


The gentles and meat can be left in the tray or tipped into a

tin box to scour for a day or two, after which they should be sifted

out and given a fresh supply of clean meat. Their .fitness for bird-

food is evidenced by the absence of any central dark line and the

almost complete absence of smell.


The scoured gentles will not keep indefinitely, but if placed

without any meal in a glass jar, which in its turn stands in 2 or 3 in.

of water in a cool place, they will remain in their larval state for

some ten days in summer and for several weeks in winter; even

when they change into pupse (the small brown chrysalis), most birds

will eat them and also use them for feeding their young.


Another larva which I have also occasionally used is the

“ blood-worm,” an aquatic, and, I believe, the larva of the gnat.*

My Malachite Sun-birds would eat them although they would not

look at mealworms. The minuteness of these insects is perhaps a

drawback to their use.


The banana-fly we have most of us tried. Personally I found



* [Not so ; the gnat-larva is atterly dissimilar ; midges of the genus Ghironomus.


—A.G.B.]



