VARIOUS HYGIENIC ASPECTS OF AUSTRALIAN LIFE. 499 



larva of tlie house-tly. In towns iiorse dung should be put under 

 shelter from the rain, and the fowl yard can be wired in so as to 

 include it. In Australian towns it seems to me that a weekly 

 removal should be imperative, and all stoi-age places should be 

 cemented on the tioor, and roofed in against rain. The expense 

 of such contrivances is trilling compu'ed with the comfort attained. 

 A method of getting rid of tlies from dwellings has been used in 

 my house for many years, for as a child 1 was an eniomologist in a 

 small way, and undertook to clear out the flies of my parents' 

 house with the entomologist's net. Years later it was found con- 

 venient to stretch across each room near the ceiling, two or three 

 straight and tight bands of white toilet fringe, about three inches 

 wide, in the rooms where food is used. Kitchen, dining and sitting 

 room flies take up their abode and settle on the band of fringe 

 in the evening ; a fly-catcher is conveniently made of mosquito 

 net, with a hoop of cane or crinoline wi)'e, eighteen inches 

 in diameter ; the handle, a stiff piece of light wood a yard loni^, is 

 tied across the hoop of the net; so as to stiften it, and the tail of 

 the mosquito net tapering to a long point. When the flies have 

 gone to rest in the evenings on the fringe, sweep the net smartly 

 the whole length of it, nearly all the flies will be caught, and going 

 over the band a few minutes later will capture those that remain. 

 The collection of flies in the tail of the net is to be immersed in 

 hot water ; the scalded flies will be relished by the chickens in the 

 morning. Cockroaches in kitchens and bakeries can be got rid of 

 by boiling water applied with a large garden syringe. Fleas, by 

 wasliing your dogs every day or two, with soap and warm water. 

 There is a wide field in Australia for the application of sanitary 

 science, particularly with regard to cleanliness. Wooden pave- 

 ment to streets of towns is a great comfort and sanitary advantage . 

 like the mallet of the mason it bears long repeated concussions 

 without disintegration, but the expense is no doubt considerable, 

 and beyond the means of many Municipalities. The noise in Sydney 

 produced by the great distance between the blocks and the trans- 

 verse position, causing the wheels of vehicles to fall at once into 

 the same groove is a defect capable of rectification. I remember 

 wood pavement in St. Ann's Square, Manchester, as one of my 

 earliest recollections. The blocks were of pine set on end, carriages 

 passed over them without producing suflicient noise to warn pas- 

 sengers of the proximity of danger, and so accidents happened. 

 Ic will be possible by management to avoid these extremes. The 

 peril to horses over the Eucalypt wood worn slippery is great, 

 would it not be possible to make a suflicient roughness by diagonal 

 grooving after the blocks have become polished by use 1 Or a set of 

 circular saws driven by engine-power in a heavy frame like a 

 steam roller, might be made to corduroy the wood work when too 

 smooth, a process that could be repeated as the blocks become 

 slippery, or smaller blocks laid obliquely across the streets might 

 eflect the same object. 



