77 
farmers to care for their stock, so far as this warble is concerned; 
and we are satisfied that where self-interest does not dictate better 
attention we can do little more than point out the means of avoiding 
injury and the desirability of so doing.” *—C. V. R. 
But we have made the advance that we now know the life- 
history and the means of prevention of this wasteful scourge, so 
thoroughly that it is now only from the most utterly ignorant that 
we hear of the filthy ulcerated swellings with a rough maggot, as 
much as an inch in length, fidgeting about within them, being a 
sign of a thriving condition. Also, the widespread issue of my 
four-page leaflet, now amounting to about a hundred and seventy 
thousand (and which I should be only happy to continue to 
distribute gratuitously to any amount desired), shows the interest 
taken in the subject. 
What could be done in the more advanced conditions of attack 
is open to consideration. If warbled beasts, and warbled hides, 
were subjected to a more rigid scrutiny, and purchase-money 
lessened accordingly, it would bring home the desirableness of 
previous attention, in order to prevent these losses to the sellers, 
in a way that nothing else could. 
Whilst the beast can stand, and eat fairly well, it is very easy 
to say in the field, or afterwards in the auction-yard, that it is all 
right; but a hide with the under surface disfigured by the great 
warble blisters, or a carcase covered beneath the places where the 
warbles Avere, with a licked beef or jellied surface, tells its tale 
beyond refuting, and here it seems to me is the point Avhere local 
regulations, or coalition amongst butchers, might bring a most 
useful and justifiable pressure to bear. 
ELEANOR A. ORMEROD, LL.D., F.E.S. 
Torrington House, St. Albans: 
September, 1900. 
* ‘Insect Life,’ Periodical Bulletin of U.S. Dept, of Agriculture, vol. ii. 
No. 6, pp. 176, 177. 
