242 TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 



ing the camper duriner outings is 

 the small, erablike woodticks, 

 the smaller plant insect ; mos [ui- 

 toes, gnats, and the omnipresent 

 flies — this latter, especially in 

 large swarms, when fish are 

 caught and cleaned of their scales 

 and entrals. In hot weather hun- 

 dreds and thousands of them soon 

 gather around the camp, and un- 

 less the fish or meat of any kind 

 be well protected, the latter will 

 surelv soon be covered with mi!- 



time and luck in catching large 

 strings of fish, and, one broiling 

 hot afternoon one of the claaned 

 fish was overlooked putting it in 

 a screened box, and when we re- 

 turned later from another tour of 

 inspecting a trotline we were 

 amazed with the amount of egqs 

 the flies had deposited in that 

 fish — by the teaspoonful! Having 

 a near-focusing lens and camera 

 with us, I prepared the photo-mi - 

 crographic view herein seen, show- 



The Fly Pest in Camp 



lions of fly eggs. The flies cr.'.wl 

 with prefernce inside the open 

 fish, and there deposit their clus- 

 ters of small, oblong eggs between 

 the folds of the gills and inside 

 the entral's cavity. 



During an outing end of July, 

 this year (1913) at the lovely 

 Guadalupe river bottom, near Sis- 

 terdale, we had a very enjoyable 



ing some eggs magnified several 

 diameters. In a day or two more, 

 these same fly eggs wotild have 

 been converted into living Ely lar- 

 vae, and eventually into a new 

 crop of flies to molest other camp- 

 ers and deposit their eggs. But 

 they were all destroyed with a 

 little boiling water |.)Oured upon 

 the eggs and the meat of the con- 



