INSECTS MOLESTING FARM ANIMALS 



275 



flies. The black-flies are the daylight pests of early summer, 

 and ere they are gone, the horse-flies and deer-flies are at 

 hand to remain through midsummer; also the bot-flies; 

 which, though they do not bother us, are aggravating to live 

 stock beyond all proportion to their number and size. 



All these transient pests are two-winged flies (members 

 of the order Diptera), belonging to a very few families. In 

 all of them, the larvae live in situations ver}^ different from 



those of the adults. The larvae 

 of the blood-sucking flies — black- 

 flies and mosquitos and horse-flies 

 — ^are mostly aquatic. The young 

 of the bot-flies are parasitic in the 

 bodies of animals. In all of them, 

 it is the females that pester the 

 live stock, the blood-sucking flies 

 by biting, and the bot-flies by the 

 operations attendant upon laying 

 their eggs. 



The mosquitos represent the 

 best-known of these families 

 (Culicidae). These do most to 

 make the night interesting. They 

 have a soft little hum that 

 probably would be counted among 

 the sweet sounds of nature, were 

 it not accompanied by so strong 

 an appetite for blood . They come 

 earliest in the spring and stay latest 

 in the fall. They breed in stand- 

 ing water — especially in shallow 

 and temporary pools. Rain- 

 Fio.116. Larva of the mosquito watct barrcls, and even tin 

 hr&cT.tSi^).^'''^^'' cans cast upon a rubbish-heap 



