MOSQUITOES AND FLIES 



During recent years we have become so well educated 

 concerning the ways of the house fly, its disgusting habits 

 of promiscuous feeding, now in the garbage can or some- 

 where worse, and next at our table or on the baby's face, 

 and we have learned so much about its menace as a pos- 

 sible carrier of disease, that it is scarcely necessary to en- 

 large here upon the fly's undesirability as a domestic 

 companion. 



The most serious accusation against the house fly is 

 that, owing to the many kinds of places it frequents with- 

 out regard to sanitary conditions, and to its indiscriminate 

 feeding habits, there is always a chance of its feet, body, 

 mouth parts, and alimentary canal being contaminated 

 with the germs of disease, particularly those of typhoid 

 fever, tuberculosis, and dysentery. It has been demon- 

 strated that flies can carry germs about with them which 

 will grow when given a proper 

 medium, and likewise that 

 flies taken at large may be 

 covered with bacteria, a 

 single fly sometimes being 

 loaded with millions of them. 

 The wisdom of sanitary 

 measures for the protection 

 of food from contamination 

 by flies can not, therefore, 

 be questioned. 



There is one form of insect 

 villainy, however, of which 

 the house fly is not guilty; 

 the structure of its mouth 

 parts clears it of all accusa- 

 tions of biting. And yet we 

 hear it often asserted by per- 

 sons of unquestioned veracity that they have been bitten 

 by house flies. The case is one of mistaken identification 

 and not of imagination on the part of the plaintiff; the 



[347] 



Fig. 184. Head of the stable fly, 

 Stomoxys calci trans 



Ant y antenna; Pfp> maxillary pal- 

 pus; Prb y proboscis 



