132 



DIPTERA OF MINNESOTA. 



general and serious attack can perhaps best be met by sending the 

 sheep to the slaughter house. On the other hand, there are a few 

 remedies or methods of preventing an attack, or of relieving the suffer- 

 ers. If the bots have penetrated into the frontal sinuses, it is apparent 

 that it would be very difficult, if not impossible to reach them. 

 Certainly one should never use a wire, or any compound which 

 would injure or cause great suffering to the patient. When the bots 

 are in the nostrils simply, they may be removed sometimes by dip- 

 ping a feather in turpentine or very weak carbolic acid (one part of 

 acid to thirty parts of water), or creosote or zenoleum. An injec- 

 tion of salt water, or diluted carbolic acid into the nostrils, with 

 a syringe is claimed to be good. Fine air-slaked lime is used 

 by some, the animals being forced to breathe it, to induce sneez- 

 ing. Dr. Lugger states in one of his reports that he met with 

 success by blowing pyrethrum up the nostrils. But, as intimated 

 above, all these remedies would avail little or nothing if the bots 

 were safely housed in the bones of the forehead. Anything which 

 will induce sneezing is good ; tobacco snuff shaken into the nostrils, 

 the burning of horns, leather or feathers in a closed shed where 

 sheep are confined, etc. It is claimed also that equal parts of 

 turpentine and sweet oil poured into the nostrils carefully, the head 

 being held up, is excellent, care having to be observed in order that 

 the sheep may not be choked. 



Some sheep raisers in infested localities maintain in pasture or 



yard logs, along which at intervals 

 of five or six inches two inch holes 

 are bored, from May to October. 

 These holes are kept about half 

 filled with salt, and the edges or 

 the mouths of the holes are fre- 

 quently smeared with fresh tar. 

 The sheep, in endeavoring to reach 

 the salt, involuntarily smear their 

 noses with the tar, and this tends to 

 keep off the flies. As an auxiliary 

 to this, for they will not all get a 

 _ , „ liberal allowance of tar on their 



Fig. 126. Three larvae of Sheep Gadfly 



in frontal sinuses of sheep. Enlarged. nOSCS, OUC may rub iutO the UOStrils 

 Lugger. "^ 



