1887.] OX WARBLE FLY ATTACK 113 



destroyed 230 of these warble grubs in the spring of 1885 

 by the application of common cart grease and sulphur to 

 the spiracle in the black tipped tail of the maggot or by 

 squeezing out the maggots. [Vide Miss Ormerod's ninth 

 Annual Report on Injurious Insects and Common Farm 

 Pests, p. 92.] Last Easter I desired my pupils, during the 

 week's holiday, to examine carefully the live stock at home 

 for ox warble and to report to me. I enclose a copy of the 

 first list which I received, and I am sure it will satisfy your 

 Grace that this pest may easily be stamped out, if our 

 farmers, their sons, or their labourers would apply the 

 smear, or press out the maggots and destroy them. School 

 boys can do this work, and feel a pleasure in the task. 

 What has been accomplished by Bunbury boys can be 

 equally well done by the boys of any other village 

 school. 1 



[A leaflet which Miss Ormerod circulated widely says : 

 From -3,000,000 to ^4,000,000 are lost annually through 

 these pests. One-half the fat beasts killed in this country 

 are afflicted with this grub. The farmer loses on his "stock 

 from poorer condition, and from death ; from less yield of 

 milk, and damage to all, especially to fattening beasts, and 

 cows from their tearing full gallop about the fields, besides 

 loss to the butcher of from a halfpenny to a penny per 

 pound on warbled hides. Look at the under side of the 

 newly flayed hide of a warbled beast and see the grub cells 

 (fig. 7). Maggots may be squeezed out, or easily killed by 

 putting a dab of cart grease and sulphur, McDougall's 

 Smear, or anything that will choke them in the opening of 

 the warble, and the fly may be prevented from striking by 

 dressing the beasts' backs in summer.] 



May I add that during the past five years I have been 

 drawing the attention of the boys to insects, which are 

 injurious to food crops. They are quite familiar with such 

 pests as the leather jacket, wireworm, turnip and mangold 

 fly, caterpillars, of the magpie moth, and the gooseberry and 

 currant sawfly, &c., &c., for hundreds of living specimens 

 have been brought to the school, bird's-nesting having to a 

 very great extent been superseded by this new pursuit. The 



1 Recent record of Warbles extracted by the Aldersey Schoolboys 

 and brought to the Headmaster : 



1895, 1,022 ; 1896, 2,596 ; 1897, 3,965 ; 1898, 1,706 ; 1899, 2,252 ; 

 1900, 1,851 ; 1901, 1,391 ; 1902, 1,066 Total, 15,849. 



9 



