44 
Maggot channel, much 
magnified. 
appeared to be soft lumps resembling a soft gathering coming to 
a head.” 
On February 18th Messrs. Hatton, of Hereford, mentioned that 
they had received an ox-hide with many warbles in it, specimens of 
the maggots from which were forwarded; * and on the previous 
day they had informed me that notice had already been given that 
hides on Birmingham Market would be sorted for warbles, and those 
having more than three would be out-classed. + 
In the earliest of the above mentioned specimens of infested hide 
forwarded to me, I found the first appearance of the warble as a 
perforated swelling, with the maggot of a 
clearly distinguishable size within. 
The channel or passage through the 
hide was still very small, the opening on 
the outside being about as large as the 
prick of a common darning needle, and 
below, though larger, scarcely the six¬ 
teenth of an inch across. 
The smallest of the maggots from these 
warbles were about a quarter of an inch long by one twelfth of an 
inch (that is, one line) in width, not as yet oval, but straightisli, 
and somewhat worm-like in shape (see figs, 
from life). When older they became rather 
enlarged towards the mouth-end, so as to be 
of a pear or club shape, white, and partially 
transparent, and marked across what may be 
called the back with sixteen short bands of 
very minute black or dark prickles, placed 
, r , ... .for the most part in alternate, very narrow, 
and worm-shaped, mag- and broader stripes. 
The young worm-like maggot possesses (ap¬ 
parently as instruments for tearing out food) a pair of crescent¬ 
shaped forks, placed nearly side by side at the extremity of 
processes, somewhat bent apart at the ends by which they are 
attached to the crescents, these processes being attached by the 
other ends to the membranes or tissues forming the gullet or 
internal sac of the maggot. These forks are of excessive minuteness, 
* The cost of this hide was 29s., whereas the value of the same weight of 
hide free from warbles would have been 35s. 5d. 
f For detailed returns of amount of attack to “classes” of hides of specified 
weight and description, and also of consequent reduction of value, see returns 
further on. 
