140 HORSE AND GATTLE FLIES. 
Ox Warble or Bot Fly, Hypoderma bovis, De Geer.—The observa- 
tions of the past season have confirmed those for which we were 
previously indebted (in numbers too large to count) to our stock- 
owners, cattle-breeders, and likewise veterinary surgeons, of the trust- 
worthy serviceableness of the simple means of greatly lessening presence 
of this infestation where the treatment advised is carried out according 
to direction. 
But still there is great need of more action. The old ‘‘ grandmother” 
story of maggots an inch long lying in the putrid lumps they have 
caused being a proof of the thriving state of the animal still holds its 
ground to a degree which keeps back useful work; so does also 
careless and ignorant mis-statement of measures of prevention and 
remedy. 
A general rubbing of the back of an infested beast may be con- 
fidently trusted to, to do neat to no good in destroying warble-maggots 
in their “boils.” The thick hair of the beasts, and the smallness of 
the opening into the warble-boil, will very often prevent the dressing 
resting on the aperture so as to choke, or entering through it so as 
to poison, the contained grub. ‘To answer our purpose, the dressing— 
whether of McDougall’s smear, or any other of the many serviceable 
applications which are well before the public from other good manu- 
facturers—must be put on the opening of the warble. Then (and then 
only) they can be trusted to, to destroy the maggot. 
Consequently I believe that squeezing out the maggot, where the 
back of the animal (enjoying the ‘infestation proof”’ of its excellently 
improved health !) is not too sore and inflamed to bear touch, is the 
surest method. Boys with light hands can do this excellently, and a 
very small bonus for warbles produced would pay well. We hear 
has not come under my own observation, but—having been favoured by Mr. Grim- 
shaw with a copy of his published observations, and it being an undeniable thing 
that an infestation causing presence of maggots of upwards of an inch in length at 
the back of the throats of the infested animals is of some importance—I take leave 
to give a short note of the attack from Mr. Grimshaw’s paper. 
During June and July the females (he mentions) lay living maggots at the open 
nostrils of the red deer. These adhere by their mouth-hooks, and work themselves 
on until they arrive at the back of the throat, where they lie until nearly ready to 
turn to chrysalids, and are then ejected by the coughing or sneezing of their host. 
The maggots are then twelve to thirteen lines long, of a general dirty yellow colour. 
They go into chrysalis state very shortly after leaving the throat of the deer at the 
base of walls or under leaves, and from the chrysalids the fly appears at a time of 
from twenty-one to forty days, or much longer in cold weather. The fly is very 
hairy ; ‘“‘cheeks with a beautiful tawny beard”; fore body with a transverse band 
of tawny towards the front, hinder part black; abdomen above densely clothed with 
hair, of a dirty yellow on the two basal segments, black on the third and fourth, 
and white from the fourth to the apex. For details of his observations see Mr. 
Grimshaw’s paper in the ‘ Annals of Scottish Natural History,’ July, 1895, 
