Much sickness is occasioned by the spread of disease 

 germs through the fly. The large death loss from ty- 

 phoid fever among the soldiers of the Spanish-Ameri- 

 can War was doubtless occasioned through the spread 

 of the typhoid germs by flies. It is to be hoped that 

 scientists may discover some means of ridding us of 

 this pest, but till such time all should lessen the evil 

 by excluding the fly from the home and by destroying 

 their breeding places as far as possible. The house 

 and all places where food is kept should be screened, 

 and the flies excluded. 



Note. The Department of Agriculture has published several bul- 

 letins giving methods for exterminating the fly pest or of lessening its 

 evil results. Many experiment stations have also issued special bulle- 

 tins on this subject. 



Other Varieties. There are many varieties of flies 

 besides the common house fly, but they all have a simi- 

 lar life history. The horsefly punctures the skin before 

 sucking. The blow fly of meat is a blackish fly with 

 bluish abdomen, laying its eggs in meat. The green 

 bottle fly incubates in manure in pastures. The blue 

 bottle fly appears very early in spring and lays its eggs 

 in meat. The screw worm fly resembles the green 

 bottle fly, but lays its eggs in wounds or in the nostrils 

 of cattle and even of human beings. The active mag- 

 gots often cause sickness and sometimes death. The 

 horn fly clusters at the base of the horns of cattle. 

 Stock may be protected from flies by spraying with a 

 mixture of three parts of fish oil with one part kero- 

 sene. Fish oil, cottonseed oil, and oil of tar may each 

 be used for the same purpose. The application must 

 be renewed at least every other day to be effective. 



