DIPTERA. 125 
‘Our fly deposits its egg, commonly called ‘‘ queresa,” in dead bodies, in manure, 
in fresh meat reserved for food, and soon there appear immense numbers of voracious 
larve that rapidly consume the objects in which has begun their active life. Not 
content with these habits, common to all the species of the group to which it per- 
tains, it deposits the germs of its posterity in the wounds of man and of animals, at 
the entrance of openings of the human face, and, in its anxiety for propagation, will 
deposit them in the wool of sheep. 
“‘Azara was, I believe, the first observer who noted cases of human myiasis in 
South America. Coquerel, many years later, called the attention of plysicians and 
naturalists to the frequent and fatal accidents which this evil produces among the 
exiles of Cayenne. According to this author, Dr. Chapuis, physician in chief of the 
French marine, attended one case in which the larve of C. macellaria had penetrated 
to the frontal sinuses, causing the death of the patient; also one very unclean person 
attacked in the nasal fosse and the pharynx, who succumbed after he had ejected one 
hundred and twenty larve. There were, as M. St. Pair observed, in the same country, 
six similar cases, of which three terminated in the death of the patients after cruel 
sufferings; in two the nose was destroyed, and in the last there was a deformation 
of the olfactory organ. In another case observed by M. St. Pair there were removed, 
by means of injections, more than three hundred larvz, but he was not able to obtain 
them all, and the remainder soon penetrated the ball of the eye, destroying the lower 
4 eyelid in consequence of gangrene, invaded the mouth, corroied the gums, and laid 
bare the inferior maxillary. The victim died seventeen days after his entrance into 
the hospital.” 
After giving records of numerous other cases, he further adds: 
*‘To Dr. Lesbini, of Cordova, are due the better observations upon cases of myiasis 
produced by C. macellaria. The first case presented itself in an old foreigner who 
had an ulcer in his leg filled with these larvx; the second case occurred in Cordova, 
in a boy of 7 years, attacked in the left ear; the third and last case was in a girl of 
16 years, also of Cordova, affected in the nasal fosse by the presence of two hundred 
and fifty larve. All these patients were saved. 
-“Ttis probable that, attracted by the fetid odor of unclean individuals, these flies 
hover over the mouth or the nose, and thus deposit their eggs. Some affirm that 
they at times enter the passages for this purpose. 
“The area of distribution of Compsomyia macellaria is very great, and will be, I 
believe, yet greater with time, since their habits facilitate their transportation by 
man from one region to another. Hitherto they have been observed in the following 
countries: Islands of America (Musca macellaria F.), North America (Chrysomyia 
tibialis, C. Vherminieri, C. carulescens, C. decora, C. plai R.-Desv.), Mexico (Lueilia 
hominivorax), Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela, Cayenne, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, 
Argentine Republic, and New Holland.” 
DISTRIBUTION. 
It will be noted in the preceding paragraph that the species is 
credited to all of America between Patagonia and Canada, but the 
territory within which the greatest damage occurs is within the tropical 
and subtropical belt. Weed states that the fly is killed by cold winters, 
which, if correct, means a barrier to its northward extension beyond 
what is possible in each season by migration of the flies. 
HABITS AS A PEST OF MAN. 
In discussing the habits of the species it will be convenient to discuss 
it with reference to the attacks upon the human species.and domestic 
animals independently. 
4 
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