FIRST OBSERVATION OF OPEN WARBLE. 
117 
On the 20tli I had the satisfaction of being able to examine the 
warble myself, in young open condition, in the hide of a Hereford which 
had been removed from the animal that day near Isleworth. 
On Feb. 23rd (as referred to at p. 113), Mr. D. Sym Scott reported 
from Ballinacourte, Tipperary, that the warble had appeared on 
some of the cattle (though not on the twenty-eight which had been 
dressed). 
On Feb. 24tli Mr. H. Thompson, M.R.C.V.S., Aspatria, Cumber¬ 
land, reported that he had found several small enlargements on young 
cattle, but no external opening ; likewise that some of the boys of the 
School of Agriculture had that day found several enlargements on the 
backs of young cattle at the farm ; and another reported small lumps 
on his father’s cattle with black spots in the centre, covered with a 
gummy matter.* 
On the following day Mr. Thompson reported that he had examined 
a large number of young cattle rising two years old, and found them 
well covered with the warbles in various stages ; “ some of them have 
twenty enlargements on the back, all showing the external opening.” 
Mr. Thompson favoured me, at the same time, with specimens of 
maggots, which show some important points which I believe have not 
been hitherto brought forward. 
The warble maggot, when full-fed, and for much of its previous 
life, is well known to be of a bluntly oval, somewhat compressed, shape, 
of various shades of colour, from whitish to deep grey, and marked 
with cross-bands, which, under a magnifier, are seen to be formed of 
minute prickles. The maggots (as far as I am aware) in this condition 
have always an opaque skin. Earlier, however, in the condition in 
which they are observable by the naked eye at the time the warble 
is first opening, I find the form and texture of the maggot is very 
different. 
The smallest which I have examined in this state was about 
a quarter of an inch long by a third of that width, not oval but 
straightish, or somewhat worm-like in shape ; when older they became 
rather enlarged towards the mouth-end, so as to be of a long pear- 
sliape, and in this condition, excepting dark cross-bands extending 
about a third round them, they were white and partially transparent. 
Whilst these small maggots were still apparently alive they were hard, 
and externally (over almost all their surface) of glassy smoothness. 
These conditions, joined to the peculiar shape and somewhat pointed 
* I take pleasure in drawing attention to the above observation of the boys of the 
Aspatria School, as it shows the amount of intelligent interest and good serviceable 
observation which could be brought to bear on these subjects by our lads and young 
men throughout the country, if they were furnished with a plain, as well as a sound, 
foundation to work on, 
