LOSSES FROM LICKED BEEF. 
29 
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 the dairy cows the loss will be greater. The daily 
loss of milk may make a difference of 1 cwt. or f cwt. of cheese per 
cow per annum. Half a hundredweight, or 12^ per cent., of milk less 
in a dairy making 4 cwt. at 70s., comes to 35s.; but 12-| per cent, is 
too low an estimate: it may in some cases be put at £3 per head, 
and in a dairy of 100 cows would show a loss of £300.” *—D. Byrd, 
Spurstow Hall, Tarporley, Cheshire. 
With regard to direct loss in value of the carcase of the animal by beef 
being what is called “ licked.” —In some serviceable observations with 
which I was favoured in 1889 by Mr. John Child, managing secretary 
of the Leeds and District Hide, &c., Company, as to details requisite 
for forming estimate of our British loss in the aggregate from warble- 
attack, he mentions:—“The greatest loss on the worst carcases of beef 
1 ever saw, taking a number together, would not be less than £1 per 
carcase, or Gd. per stone ; of course there are some exceptional cases 
worse than these, but they are rare—in fact so rare that they should 
not come within your calculations. 
“ I think I am right in saying that the depreciation in the value of 
licked carcases of beef are from Gd. per stone down to Id. per stone, 
and as the highest figure named comes in fewest number, the average 
figure for reduction in value should not be taken at more than 2 d. per 
stone. Take the average weight of cattle affected by ‘ lick ’ and 
‘Warble’ at forty stone, we have thus a loss on the carcase of 
6s. 8d.” —J. C. 
This estimate of our scale of loss or lessened value on this one item 
appears to run lower than that in America. The above estimate at 
Id. to Gd. per stone equalling 3s. 4 d. to 20s. per carcase at average 
weight given, runs a good deal lower than the Chicago estimate of 
2 dollars to 5 dollars per carcase, that is, 8s. to 20s. of our money. 
Our highest estimate is considered to occur so rarely comparatively, 
* The above note also formed part of a paper communicated by Mr. Byrd to the 
‘ Chester Chronicle ’ of Feb. 7th, 1884. Mr. Byrd’s mention of “ the Warble and 
Gad Fly” is very important, as these two very different attacks are often confused. 
The Gad Fly, Tabanus bovinus, is much larger than the Warble Fly; it does not 
injure the animals by means of its grubs, as these feed in the ground, but it causes 
mischief by driving its sucking apparatus into the cattle very painfully and drawing 
away the blood, and also, like the Warble Fly, by terrifying them into the wild 
gallops we know so well. From some of the various subsequent observations given 
it appears that the applications noted as useful to keep off one sort of fly are 
equally useful to keep off the other; and this point of the cattle so dressed being 
able to feed in peace whilst the others were being hurried in all directions is well 
worth consideration. 
