10 Insect Life : Its Why and Wherefore 
should be removed regularly once a week, 
and where pets of any kind are kept all 
excrements should be burned or treated 
chemically. Where there is none of this 
decaying matter there will be no flies or 
very few of them. If every householder 
would begin by being very careful in this 
matter, we should soon find that the “ musca 
domestica,” and many other species of flies 
as well, would become more rare. An 
excellent maggot killer, which few can 
complain of the price of, is chloride of lime. 
If our friend the farmer, with his large 
heaps of manure, were to use this, or better 
still, be compelled to use it, a great service 
would be rendered to his fellow-men. 
If that troublesome little insect, with its 
patience-provoking, unappetising habit of 
perching sometimes on my plate, some- 
times on the end of my nose and anon in 
my eye, has succeeded in dinning into my 
dense mind that I must be cleanly in my 
habits if I would be healthy and strong — 
if it has succeeded in emphasising that 
cleanliness is nearly allied to godliness, 
then dare we any of us say that the fly has 
plagued us in vain ? 
