72 
chemical action takes place, and it must be done with caution). 
To this I added 10 oz. raw linseed-oil, and rubbed the cow’s back 
once a day with the mixture. 
“ In a fortnight the back was cleaned, and all the maggots 
destroyed.” 
Where neither proper advice nor more elaborate applications 
are at hand, lard or rancid butter, mixed with a little sulphur, or 
cart-grease {if not too strong a kind), also mixed with a little sulphur, 
have been found to succeed well; the butter or lard will answer 
well in very bad cases, by being soothing in effect, as well as 
destructive to the maggot, and this, safely and satisfactorily in 
about the most ignorant and untrustworthy hands that could be 
found,—namely, by old women called in as “Charmers” in the 
West of Ireland to cure warbles by incantations, but whose real 
operations, I found (with the help of an ally), consisted in covering 
the breathing aperture of the maggot with the butter or lard above 
mentioned, and (as far as we made out) a little sulphur. 
As the charmers required a good sum for their services, which 
I felt sure would not be given unless the treatment was successful, 
I thought it was worth while to procure a quiet investigation, which 
gave the above results. It is not without noteworthiness that, 
rather than take a very little trouble, and prevent their cattle being 
nearly or quite killed by sore backs in the treeless and pondless 
districts of West Connaught, there are people who prefer calling in 
lying old women, pretending to deal with unknown powers, who, for a 
good round sum, effect a cure, with the costless application that 
ought to have been applied weeks before by the owners. 
Destruction of warble-maggots by application of smears or dressings 
or washes. —It should be carefully kept before the minds of herds¬ 
men, with regard both to dressings to keep fly off and to destroy 
maggots, that—though the effect of some kinds lasts a long time—- 
it is often almost waste money just to run the animal over with 
some wash of which the effect soon goes off. 
The number of kinds of dressings that will answer the purpose 
are endless. All that is needed is that the grease or mixture should 
be thick enough, and tenacious enough, for a little “dab” of it, 
when placed on the opening of the warble, to adhere firmly, and 
thus choke the maggot by preventing it drawing in air through the 
breathing-apparatus in the two black spots at the end of the tail, which 
may usually be seen in the opening of the warble-swelling.* If, besides 
* This of coarse does not apply to washes of brine, which are sometimes 
very useful, 
