28 
Feeding cattle cannot grow in flesh without quiet and rest, 
and cows very soon give less milk, and worse quality, if driven 
fast or made excited. These tormenting flies, and the 
presence of the prickly-coated Warble Maggot, must keep up 
a perpetual uneasiness, and retard the growth of our feeding 
cattle to our loss, it may be, of £2 per head. In dairy cows 
the loss will be greater. The daily loss of milk may make a 
difference of i cwt. or J cwt. of cheese per cow per annum ; so 
that their loss may be put in some instances at £3 per head, 
and for others less. 
Mr. H. Thompson says :—“ I would say there are from 
fifteen to twenty warbles on one animal where the land is 
well sheltered by trees, but where the land is open, the 
warbles are more numerous.” The number o f warbles on one 
animal may be 6, 10, 20, or even more than 100, one inch long, 
and feeding on sores which they keep up from January or 
February until they are full grown. The proportion of 
warbled to sound hides increased very rapidly after February 
4th; and on April 18th, out of the total number of hides of 
eight classes purchased on that day, amounting to 435 hides, 
163 were warbled. In some cases the great maggot-infested 
swellings on the flesh side of the hide were so close together 
as to form confluent masses ; and in one piece sent to Miss 
Ormerod by Messrs. Hatton, measuring somewhat under 28 
inches by 8 inches, there were seventy-two warble swellings. 
Some of the hides thus infested were from animals which had 
died of illness considered to have been aggravated or caused 
by the horrible state of their backs, from the action of these 
maggots. According to P. H. Gosse, in the “ Canadian 
Naturalist,” warbles are commonly called “wormuls,” originally 
“worm-holes.” He states they will not go into the pupa state 
after being ejected from the warbles. The number of 
maggots I found on one beast varied from one to twenty. 
Mr. W. H. Liddell published a letter in December, 1880, in 
which he says :—“ There are at present, I may safely say, 
three-fourths of all our cattle being tortured by this inveterate 
insect, which by a little trouble, and at a nominal expense, 
could be extirpated ; and thus we should save an immense 
amount of capital, and wipe out a disgrace to all who neglect 
their cattle.” 
