FLIES, AND TIME OF APPEARANCE. 
Ill 
Summer attack. 
About four weeks after the maggots have been noticed leaving the backs of 
the cattle the summer attack from Warble Fly may be expected to begin , and 
to be great or small in amount according to the number of maggots which 
were allowed to live. 
The Warble Flies are about half an inch long, striped or banded 
with different coloured hairs so as to look not very unlike light-made 
Humble Bees. They have larger beads, with yellowish faces, the 
body between the wings yellowish before and black behind, and the 
abdomen banded successively with white, black and orange, the orange 
being at the tip. The two wings are brown, without sjjots, the legs 
black, with pitchy or red feet.* 
The egg is stated to be white and oval, with a small brown lump¬ 
like appendage atone end. How the animal is “struck”—that is, 
how the egg is attached to it—-is not yet proved. (For references 
regarding this point, see Index). 
The following observations note the date of attack as being chiefly in July 
and August :— 
“ The period they [the Warble Flies] annoy the Ox and deposit the 
eggs in this climate is from the middle of July to the middle of 
August.” —John Milne, Mains of Laitliers, Turriff, Aberdeenshire. 
“ In this part the perfect insect generally deposits its eggs about 
lea-hay time, July and August, and from the way the cattle (young 
ones two and three years old particularly) gallop through the pastures 
with tail erect, I am inclined to think that the ovipositor pierces the 
skin, and the egg is deposited within the skin. Nothing seems to be 
seen till March, when the little swellings are observed on the cows’ 
backs, and during April and May the larvae leave their winter-quarters 
and fall to the ground.” —Henry Thompson, Aspatria, Cumberland. 
.“It appears that the Fly during the summer deposits its 
egg in the skin on the back of the ox, and during winter several little 
lumps make their appearance on the animal’s back, and about April 
and May a little hole is observable in each little lump ; and I have at 
this time squeezed a great many of the bots through the holes.”— 
J. B. Scott, Sutterton Grange, Spalding. 
August 8th. “ Cattle are suffering very much at this time from 
the Fly. Fancy a fat beast having to run perhaps ten miles a day in 
* For details see authorities cited at the end of this paper. It may assist those 
who wish to secure specimens of the Fly to mention that the best method appears 
to be to fasten a small stout gauze or muslin bag by means of a ring of tar on the 
infested animal just when the warble is what is termed ripe. The maggot will drop 
uninjured into the bag, and, if lightly covered with earth in a wide-mouthed bottle 
with a gauze over the top (or, better still, covered with earth out of doors, and an old 
gauze dish-cover set over it), the Fly will most likely, in due season, be secured. 
This species is very difficult to procure from entomological dealers. 
