14 CHEESE. [1899 



The following notes on prevention and remedy of attack of P. casei to 

 Bacon are given by Miss M. E. Murtfeldt in the paper in ' Insect Life,' 

 vol. vi. No. 2, p. 175, referred to in note at p. 8, preceding, " When 

 exposed to severe and protracted cold, larvae, pupae, and flies are killed. 

 The flies speedily succumb to the fumes of burning sulphur or 

 pyre thrum powder, and the latter, if dusted upon them, produces the 

 same stupefying efi"ect that it does upon other Diptera " [two-winged 

 flies]. "The firm in whose behalf these investigations were under- 

 taken informs me that in order to exclude the fly they screened all 

 windows and doors with a twenty-four to the inch wire mesh. 



'* They also, early in the spring, thoroughly whitewashed and 

 fumigated smoke-houses and store-rooms, using an admixture of 

 carbolic acid in the whitewash, thus effectually sealing up or killing 

 all hybernating individuals that might be lurking in these places." 



In Bulletin No. 4, U.S.A. (referred to at p. 8, preceding) it is also 

 mentioned " that close screening of the windows of pantries is advised 

 to keep out the fly." Whether for preservation of Bacon or Cheese, 

 such arrangements as may thoroughly prevent entrance of the flies 

 are very important. 



Piophila casei as a Cheese attack. — The first inquiry regarding this as 

 a Cheese infestation was sent me on the 29th of March in last season 

 from a farm in Shropshire, as follows : — 



" We are troubled very much with a small fly that I never saw 

 until last year all about the house. I make Cheshire Cheese, and the 

 room is swarming with them now, and summer time ; there are not 

 any Cheeses in the room now, but flies are there. I perceived the air 

 swarming with them. They are half the size of an ordinary fly, and 

 I fancy they enter through the window when open." 



A corroborative sample of flies was enclosed, with some further 

 remarks as to the attack of the flies to the Cheese, and the great con- 

 sequent mischief likewise, the Cheese being "fat." This point (that 

 is, the richness of the Cheese), also the very great numbers of the flies, 

 and also the point of their effecting their entrance through the window 

 when open, are all matters for special notice connected with the in- 

 festation, and the latter very especially relatively to available methods 

 of forestalling attack. 



With regard to observation of jumping maggots in "fat Cheese," 

 so far back as the year 1567, it is of interest to notice that in the 

 ' History of the Northern Nations,' by Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of 

 Upsal, printed at Basle in the year 1567, at p. 812, after an enumera- 

 tion of various kinds of worms or grubs, it is mentioned that there is 

 also another kind of grvib which infests Cheese, leaping in the shape of 

 a bow in fat Cheese, and which no cold destroys. The passage is as 



