HOUSEHOLD AND CAMP INSECTS 21 



period extends from n to over 30 days, and the pupal stage from 

 6 to about 20 days. The period from egg to adult may vary from 

 approximately 1.9 to over 42 days. Outbreaks are greatly favored 

 by a rainy period saturating accumulations of straw. 



Stock may be protected from this biting fly with blankets of 

 double thicknesses of burlap. Darkened stables are also helpful, 

 provided all flies are dislodged with some type of brush as the 

 cattle enter the barns. Disposal of straw so as to prevent accumu- 

 lations becoming saturated and thus affording ideal conditions for 

 breeding is a most effective preventive measure. 47 



The biting house fly may be destroyed with a poisoned bait con- 

 taining i per cent sodium arsenite and 10 per cent sugar. 48 



Stable Fly 



Muscina stabulans Fall. 



The stable fly is very similar to the 'house fly though somewhat 

 larger, and is found in houses usually in the early summer about 

 the same time as the small house fly. 



The eggs are laid and the larvae feed upon various kinds of 

 decaying or decomposing organic matter, and have been recorded as 

 predaceous upon house fly maggots. They have been found in the 

 dung of cattle and horses, on raw and cooked meat, on carcasses of 

 different vertebrates and invertebrates, in rotten bulbs and vege- 

 tables, on fungi, old cheese, etc. As many as 160 eggs may be de- 

 posited by one female and development may be completed in about 

 a month, making possible the production of several generations in 

 one season. 49 There are several records of this species causing 

 intestinal myaisis. 



Blow Flies and Bottle Flies 



The queen blow fly, Phormia regina Meign., is the com- 

 mon black fly, markedly larger than the house fly, so frequently 

 seen in early spring in houses, and the one commonly bred in ani- 

 mal wastes and garbage. It is one of the more abundant species 

 about slaughterhouses and abattoirs. This species has in Texas a 

 preoviposition period of 7 to 1 8 days, an egg stage of I to 4 days, a 

 larval development of 4 to 15 days, a pupal stage of 3 to 13 days, 

 the total life cycle being completed in from 10 to 25 days. 50 



47 Bishopp. Jour. Econ. Ent, 6:112-26. 1913. 



48 Rev. Appl. Ent. 4:27. 1916. 



49 Hewitt. The House Fly, p. 209. 1914. 



50 Bishopp. Jour. Econ. Ent., 8:327. 1915. 



