NOTE ON A FLY WHICH PREYS ON HUMAN BEINGS. 
By L. Perincugey, F.E.S. 
[READ 30TH SEPTEMBER, 1891.] 
THE example exhibited was bred from larvae, nine in number, 
extracted from the arm of a child in Natal, and was sent to the 
Museum by Col. J. H. Bowker without any other information. 
Some time back I received from a valued friend of mine, living in 
the neighbourhood of Lourenco Marquez, Delagoa Bay, a fly larva 
in spirit, with the intimation that he thought the insects were taking 
their revenge on him—he was at the time collecting furus. He wrote 
that for several days he had been suffering untold torture from what 
appeared to him to be a small boil on the calf of his leg. 
In vain did he poultice it with hot emollients, the pain was greater 
after the application, and one day he cut open the tumour and while 
pressing it with his fingers to expel what he thought would prove 
to be putrid matter he ejected this large grub. 
I have not been able to identify this particular fly, but it is not 
-2 bot fly (Céstrid) nor is the larva that of an Céstrid. It is perhaps 
allied to Bengalia depressa (Walk.) , 
Some of the Muscidae have been known to prey on human bodies. 
Sueh is the case in America, where Lucilia macellaria, i.e., Lucilia 
hominivorax, Coquerel, is found I believe from the River Plate 
to Kansas, U.S. This fly deposits its eggs in the nostrils of man, 
the larvae are soon hatched and force their way through the frontal 
sinuses, destroy the palate, gnaw through the gums, and the result 
is generally death. As many as three hundred larvae were met with 
in one case. Drs. Coquerill and F. H. Snow of Kansas have given 
the most harrowing technical details of the modus operandi of the 
screw-worms—as they are called-in America. 
