LIFE ABOUT OUR HOMES IN FALL 79 



Like all true flies, it has only two wings. Behind the 

 wings, where other insects, as butterflies, bees, and wasps, 

 have another pair of wings, the fly has two short stubs, 

 which look as if a pair of wings had been cut off from them, 

 Examine the flies mentioned above, to see if this is true of 

 the stable fly, and the blowfly as well. 



Life history of the housefly. It lays its eggs in manure, 

 and the larvae look like the typical maggots that everybody 

 has seen on dead animals, decaying meat, on cheese, and in 

 old mushrooms. One fly lays more than a hundred eggs. 

 The maggots become full grown in about a week. Then 

 they cease eating and moving, their skin shrinks, and they 

 look like little brown barrels. Whenever manure is hauled 

 out of the barnyard in summer or fall, these little barrels 

 can be seen. They are the pupae of the flies. After the 

 pupa stage has lasted also about a week, the maggot changes 

 into a fly, which breaks the brown skin and crawls out. If 

 you can procure some of the pupae and keep them in a glass 

 jar with moist soil, you can watch this change taking place. 



Some flies winter in houses or warm barns, and when 

 spring comes, they rapidly multiply. 



The stable fly looks very much like the house fly, but it 

 is grayer in color ; its wings spread more, and it has a pierc- 

 ing beak like the mosquito, and annoys horses and cattle 

 very much. When stormy and rainy weather approaches, 

 it often comes into our houses and torments us with its 

 biting. Most people think the house flies are hungry and 

 do the biting. Examine the house fly closely, and you will 

 find that its beak has a foot-like appendage, with which it 

 can pick up small pieces of food and rasp on them, but can- 

 not pierce the skin of men and animals. No house fly ever 

 bit. 



If flies were not so numerous, they would not annoy us ; 

 but on account of their immense numbers they often become 



