October 10, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



513 



few days, at the request of Dr. Dawson and 

 Mr. Vandusen, of the water works depart- 

 ment, I visited the three cribs. The depart- 

 ment launch left the harbor about ten o'clock 

 of the morning of August 21, steaming di- 

 rectly to the nearest crib, a mile and a quarter 

 out. Two house flies came out with the 

 launch. A light breeze was blowing from the 

 south, possibly six to eight miles an hour, and 

 it carried the intensely acrid, sulphurous 

 smoke of the city out over the lake. For 

 nearly a mile out this smoke was so strong 

 that it made my eyes smart and run tears, 

 and quite possibly this low sheet of smoke 

 may have had something to do with driving 

 the flies out of the harbor. I found this first 

 crib swarming with flies. In a lot caught at 

 random I counted 41 house flies, 9 stable flies 

 and 4 blue bottles. 



From this crib we steamed out to the six- 

 mile crib. Here the flies were even more nu- 

 merous than on the first crib or even any- 

 where about the docks. My catch here was 

 10 house fiies, 22 stable flies and 1 blue bottle. 

 Possibly twenty stable fiies followed us into 

 the launch and over to the five-mile crib. My 

 catch here was from a trap baited with sugar 

 and water with a few drops of vinegar added: 

 4 house flies, 25 stable flies and 12 blue bottles. 



Two crib tenders live on each crib, but 

 there are no animals and there is absolutely 

 nothing in which flies of any kind could 

 breed. All garbage and waste matters are 

 dumped immediately into the lake or are put 

 into a tight incinerator and burned daily. 

 Lake steamers pass within about half a mile 

 of the cribs, but none of the men had ever 

 noticed any evidence of flies coming from 

 them. All the crib tenders maintain that a 

 south wind brings a cloud of flies from the 

 city and that a north wind carries them away. 

 No smaller boats were anywhere near the 

 cribs that day and seldom come near them. 



The only explanation for the above facts 

 seems to be that the flies are blown at least 

 six miles off shore, and that they gather on 

 the cribs as temporary resting places. At- 

 traction of any other sort can not be a strong 

 factor: else they would remain on shore, at- 



tracted by the animals and men along the 

 docks and the much richer food supply. While 

 not entirely conclusive, the evidence seems 

 strongly to support the theory that fiies of 

 the above kinds are able to travel much 

 farther than is commonly supposed. 



All the fiies in the crib appeared to be 

 ravenously hungry and it wiU not be difficult 

 to trap the house and blue bottle fiies as fast 

 as they come. The stable flies bite most vi- 

 ciously, but they, too, enter the traps in num- 

 bers, and it is quite probable that all the flies 

 on the cribs can be killed most easily with 

 formalin bottles, 2.5 per cent, in a milk or 

 beer or sugar and vinegar mixture, whichever 

 may prove most attractive to them. 



C. F. Hodge 



THE WORD " FUNGUS " 



To THE Editor op Science: He is a brave 

 man who openly throws stones at another 

 man's domicile, even if he justify the act as 

 altruistic, knowing the proverbial danger in- 

 curred. Certainly he should not be surprised 

 by some return. 



In Science of September 5 Dr. Dabney has 

 justly taken exception to the use of the com- 

 mon expression " quite a few." But he has 

 erred in calling it " slangy," " a malevolent 

 fungus growth," or " a sort of fad." It is 

 simply a colloquial term in certain parts of 

 the country, and occasionally slips into digni- 

 fied writing, as do other indefensible phrases. 

 But they are not becoming established, as 

 Dr. Dabney implies ; the tendency is quite the 

 reverse. When all scientific men shall have 

 been recruited from the ranks of the learned, 

 such unpleasant evidences of the survival of 

 youthful derelictions of speech will have dis- 

 appeared. 



Having taken notice of Dr. Dabney's fiing, 

 I offer one in return. One must be doubly 

 surprised to notice that in a criticism of a col- 

 league regarding " good English," there occurs 

 a lapse in " good grammar." What justifica- 

 tion is there for the usage "fungus growth?" 

 Possibly the phraseology is in recognition of 

 the increasing demand for hyphenated sub- 

 stantives, with the hyphen dropped out. Or 



