8 
Reaumur, Kirby, and Spence, and other writers, were of 
opinion that the ovipositor was used to bore a hole through 
the hide, by means of the sharp points at the end of the inner 
tube, and sliding the eggs through the tube into the wound ; 
but recent researches by Miss Ormerod, Consulting Ento¬ 
mologist to the Royal Agricultural Society ; H. Thompson, 
V.S., Aspatria; and others, have proved this opinion to be 
erroneous. Miss Ormerod is of opinion that the egg is fixed 
just below the cuticle, and that the maggot, after hatching 
there, burrows its way through the hide to the sub-cutaneous 
tissues. Sometimes this channel through the hide was of 
such a shape that it could not have been caused by the 
ovipositor of the insect; as the channel by which the young 
maggot reaches the sub-cutaneous tissues is left open. This is 
an important point in the question of destroying it in its 
early stages, before it does any serious amount of mischief, 
because poisonous washings and dressings may thereby reach 
it, and choke up its breathing passages. 
In the case of the nearly-allied Warble Fly of the reindeer, 
the female fly has been seen by Linnaeus with the egg at end 
of ovipositor in the act of placing it on the hide ; and from this, 
it is highly probable that the Ox Warble Fly does the same. 
Mr. Henry Thompson is also of opinion that the egg is 
placed in the cuticle or outer skin by the ovipositor. 
Miss Ormerod states that the egg is somewhat spindle- 
shaped, with a small additional process at one end, so :— 
If it could be seen which way the egg 
is placed in the ovipositor of a female 
about to lay, it would help to deter¬ 
mine the point. It is probable that 
the fly sticks the egg fast in the hide 
by this appendage, as in fig. 4. Miss Ormerod found a body 
stuck up as above, but being called away, she did not see it 
again until three hours afterwards, 
when she found it shrivelled up. 
It was pinkish, with a vein. She 
fancied it was a maggot which had 
thrown off the egg-pillule, and was 
just starting on its way through 
the hide (November 17th). 
Fig. 4.—Egg a fastened in hide b, 
by the appendage c. 
process. 
Fig. 3.—Egg of Warble Fly. 
