PREVENTIVE MEASURES. 139 
and also, though in the following point a veterinary opinion would be 
needed if the difficulty I believe would occur, does exist, I should 
conjecture that the frequent annoyance to the cows caused by presence 
of complete strangers disturbing the quiet of the herds and frightening 
the individual animals by handling and turning up the hair in the 
search for neglected warbles would be likely to be seriously prejudicial 
to their health, even if the ‘‘ policeman’? was accompanied by the 
herdsman. If he has free access without, the results might cause 
much greater loss from terrification of the breeding stock than any 
moderate amount of warbles; and, as I have been so repeatedly 
written to in the past few months to request me to give my views on 
compulsory prevention, I trust, in laying the above points before my 
readers, that I am not intruding beyond what I may with all due 
deference submit to them, more especially because, as previously 
mentioned, I believe that the Board of Agriculture has been referred 
to, and replied that it was considered undesirable to move in the 
matter. 
It lies in the cattle-owners’ hands to clear their beasts so as to 
make an enormous reduction in the amount of warbles; the simple 
methods by which this can be done have long been before the public, 
but there is a great need that this information should be more dis- 
seminated ; and it is eminently to be wished that more care should be 
taken as to the authority on which recipes and directions for dressings 
are brought forward. 
There is advice abroad—as, for instance, that of a general smear of 
the hide to kill the maggots in the warbles—which is worse than 
useless, for, while it does no good in itself (as to kill the maggot the 
application must be thoroughly placed so as to choke the breathing- 
pores or poison the grub in each warble), it stands in the way of 
proper applications. Also there is advice good in itself, but that would 
be much more serviceable if the name of a well-known adviser was 
appended. 
At p. 747 of the fourth part of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England for 1897 is an excellent recipe for a smear for 
prevention of attack of the Warble Fly, with the remark prefixed,— 
‘‘In the Proceedings of the Council of July 31st, 1895, the Society 
gave the following directions for the prevention of warble attack.” 
But to many of us it would have strengthened the advice if the recipe 
had been acknowledged to its original contributor, the well-known 
veterinary surgeon Mr. Henry Thompson, M.R.C.V.S., Aspatria, 
Cumberland, by whose permission I printed it as follows in my Annual 
Report for 1884, with his name appended, and we have thus (from my 
contributors) knowledge of success of the treatment on thirteen to 
fourteen years’ evidence :— 
