INSECTS MOLESTING FARM ANIMALS 



275 



flies. The black-flies are the daylight pests of early summer, 

 and ere they are gone, the horse-flies and deer-flies are at 

 hand to remain through midsummer; also the bot-flies; 

 which, though they do not bother us, are aggravating to live 

 stock beyond all proportion to their number and size. 



All these transient pests are two-winged flies (members 

 of the order Diptera), belonging to a very few families. In 

 all of them, the larvae live in situations very different from 



those of the adults. The larvae 

 of the blood-sucking flies— black- 

 flies and mosquitos and horse-flies 

 — are mostly aquatic. The young 

 of the bot-flies are parasitic in the 

 bodies of animals. In all of them, 

 it is the females that pester the 

 live stock, the blood-sucking flies 

 by biting, and the bot-flies by the 

 operations attendant upon laying 

 their eggs. 



The mosquitos represent the 

 best-known of these families 

 (Culicadae). These do most to 

 make the night interesting. They 

 have a soft little hum that 

 probably would be counted among 

 the sweet sounds of nature, were 

 it not accompanied by so strong 

 an appetite for blood. They come 

 earliest in the spring and stay latest 

 in the fall. They breed in stand- 

 ing water — especially in shallow 

 and temporary pools. Rain- 

 fig 1:0. Larva of the mosquito, water barrels, and even tin 



Anophles punctipennis. (Drawn „ . *..„-.„ _ «^'U'U;^'U "U rtrt « 



by Miss Cora a: Smith). cans cast upon a rubbish-neap 



