8 
recorded as having been occasionally found, even up to as many as 
sixty to eighty. 
From the middle of April to the end of July is the time noticed in 
this country as the most special time for the maggots to leave the 
nostrils ; but they may be found at other seasons, and maggots of 
all ages, it is stated, may be found in the winter time. Amongst 
inquiries sent me about this attack last year, one was accompanied 
by six maggots of different sizes up to five-eighths of an inch long 
taken from one sheep. This was on the 12th of May. 
They are stated by various writers to remain for about ten 
months in the nose cavities, but this is not absolutely proved. 
When fully matured they loosen the hold of their hooks on the 
mucous membrane, and, having freed themselves, they drop to the 
ground, or are expelled with much sneezing and snorting. Some¬ 
times there is a good deal of trouble, amounting in severe cases to 
difficulty of breathing from stoppages occasioned by presence of the 
maggots, or inflammation of the mucous membrane; but, excepting 
where there are many maggots, the attack does not appear to be 
often fatal, and when the cause of the trouble has been got rid of 
in natural course the sheep recovers. 
When the maggot has fallen to the earth it bores down into it for 
an inch or two, and there very soon changes in appearance by 
contracting and by the hardening of its outer skin into a smooth 
black chrysalis case, within which the fly develops, and from which 
it emerges, according to various observers, at very different lengths 
of time—some giving three or four weeks, some more than twice 
that time, as the period of development according to state of 
weather. 
Though the attack is considered not to be serious, excepting in 
occasional instances, as where there may be an unusual number 
of maggots, yet even the symptoms recorded as accompanying 
common amount of maggot presence show a degree of annoyance 
to the sheep that is much better avoided. The discharge from the 
nose, the throwing the head upwards and shaking it, and the 
sneezing and snorting all show great uneasiness; and, as noted by 
Dr. Cooper Curtice (op. cit., p. 28), the fact that the mouth-hooks 
sink so deeply into the mucous membrane as to cause minute points 
of haemorrhage, indicated afterwards by minute black dots scattered 
over the surface of the inside of the nose, speaks for itself as to the 
annoyance that must be caused when the maggots are travelling 
upwards, inserting their hooks as they go. 
The troubles arising from presence of Nostril Maggot are some- 
