THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 165 



forth in every new edition of the '-Practical Shepherd? the same old 

 exploded (or should be) notion of the fly depositing an egg. I pre- 

 sume it is altogether likely that all modern English writers on sheep 

 keep up the same thing — by copying from Youatt." 



On one occasion in iS66, I myself obtained living maggots from 

 one fly and Mr. Cockrill has since obtained over 300 living, moving 

 worms from one that was caught while she was after the sheep. 

 Many flesh-flies, if they cannot find suitable meat or carrion on which 

 to lay their eggs, retain these egg so long in their bodies that they 

 hatch there, into living larvae; and it is not impossible that the above 

 observations were made with flies that had been so circumstanced, 

 but I think it highly improbable, and strongly incline to believe that 

 it is the normal nature of this fly to produce living larvas. I incline 

 to ; ;s belief the more strongly, from the fact that it would be diffi- 

 cult to attach an egg to the slimy nostrils of a sheep. 



To prevent it from depositing its young, different means are re- 

 I to. Mr. Randall says that "some farmers turn up the soil in 

 portions of their pastures, so that the sheep may thrust their noses 

 into the soft ground, on approach of the fly, while others smear their 

 noses with tar, or cause them to do so themselves." But as the fly is 

 very persevering, and generally attains her object, the means to be 

 depended on the most, is the dislodging of the larva, or "grub," and so 

 far, lime has been thought to be the most effectual, and should be 

 them, that they may by sniffing it, cause sneezing, and in many 

 case- dislodge the grub. Some sheep keepers even shut their sheep 

 up for several nights, in a tight barn, when first taken up in the fall, 

 believing that the close and heated atmosphere induces the grub to 

 descend, and is therefore more readily dislodged, and that the injury 

 accruing from such foul air, is trifling, compared with the benefit re- 

 ceived by dislodging the grubs. Other sheep breeders are in the 

 sing salt logs in their pastures, of sufficient length to enable 

 all the sheep to get at them. Into these logs, at distances of five or 

 iches, holes are bored with a two-inch auger, and during fly sea- 

 son a little salt is kept in these holes, while every two or three days 

 ared around them with a brush. The sheep in obtaining the 

 sail, tar their noses, and the odor of the tar keeps the fly away. In 

 e cases where the grubs are already in the head, they may be 

 dislodged in a measure, by a feather dipped in turpentine, which 

 should be run up the nose and gently turned. 



