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the U.8.A. Department of Agriculture:—“ 1 The Effect of the Warbles 
in the Dairy ’ is the title of an interesting article by T. D. Curtis, 
in which the loss in the quantity of the flow of milk, as well as its 
deterioration in quality, resulting from the annoyance to the 
animals by the flies, while the latter are depositing eggs, and later 
by the grubs, is conclusively shown, and he estimates the shrinkage 
at 10 per cent., and the loss in quality at the same rate, making a 
total of 20 per cent.” * 
The following observations, forwarded to me in 1888, are just a 
few examples of the communications sent me regarding serious 
injury, in some cases ending in death, occurring from warble attack; 
and as happily attack does not commonly run on to this extreme 
condition, I quote them verbatim, with my contributors names. 
Early in May, Mr. Charles Magniac, of Col worth, near Bedford, 
wrote me:— 
“Your lecture at the Farmer’s Club suggested to me that a 
young steer I saw lately on my farm was dying of warbles. I have 
examined him to-day, and have no doubt of it. His back is like a 
newly-metalled road.” On May 8th I received a note from the 
bailiff (from the Colworth Estate Office) that the animal was 
dead. 
On June 9th Mr. G. E. Phillips, Treriffith, Moylgrove, near 
Cardigan, reported without doubt of the serious nature of the 
attack, and I give his precise wording , as I do not know that any 
would be more appropriate to the misery caused by the feeding of 
more than two hundred maggots on one wretched animal:— 
“ These infernal maggots are something abominable this season. 
I and my man actually squeezed 210 out of the back of a yearling 
beast, and had to leave many behind; the poor creature was 
nothing but a mass of corruption.” 
Mr. M. Johnson, writing from Varmontly Hall, Whitfield, 
Langley-on-Tyne, mentioned:— 
“ I live where it is all grazing farms, and the good work has 
not begun yet. Several of the cattle which were grazed on our 
highest land did very badly through the winter, and I could only 
keep them up with very good feeding. These turned out to be 
totally covered with warbles. Some of the lumps when squeezed 
out contained nothing but a lot of sticky matter: they have got the 
turn now, but I firmly believe it was nothing but the warble attack 
that was killing them.” 
* See ‘ Insect Life,’ Periodical Bulletin of U.S.A. Dept, of Agriculture, 
vol. ii. No. 5, p. 158. Washington, U.S.A. 1889. 
