80 
WARBLE FLY. 
that our average loss as calculated above is 6s. 8 d., not quite up to the 
lowest sum noted from Chicago. 51 '' 
“ The amount of this loss can be better appreciated, perhaps, by 
reproducing in condensed form the approximate estimate of the loss 
on the hides of cattle received at the Union Stock-yards of Chicago 
during the grubby season, which includes the months from January to 
June. Using the reports by States above given as a basis, it is 
estimated that fifty per cent, of the cattle received are grubby. The 
average value of a hide is put at 3-90 dollars ; and while, from the 
report referred to, one-third value is the usual deduction for grubby 
hides in this estimate, but 1 dollar is deducted, or less than one-third. 
The number of cattle received in 1889 for the six months indicated 
was 1,335,026, giving a loss on the fifty per cent, of grubby animals, 
667,513 dollars. When to this is added the loss from depreciated value 
and lessened quantity of the beef, the amount for each infested animal 
is put at 5 dollars, indicating a total loss on these animals from the 
attack of the fly of 3,337,565 dollars.”—See ‘ Insect Life.’ Periodical 
Bulletin of U. S. A. Department of Agriculture. Vol. ii., No. 5, pp. 
156, 157. Washington, U. S. A. : Government Printing Office. 
As it is of a good deal of interest to be able in some degree to 
compare the proportion of warble-presence in infested cattle, and also 
estimates of rate of money-loss thereby in countries which (as in the 
present case) suffer connectedly by reason of cattle-traffic from this 
cause, I give the preceding observation, with some amount of estimate 
as to amount of warble-presence, and injury from it, in the U. S. A.; 
reference to the original reports is subjoined in the foot-note. 
The great points of our national loss from warble-infestation turn 
on loss of health and sometimes death of the beasts, loss of milk, 
injury to produce in the herd, and loss of flesh in the fatting beasts. 
All this falls on the cattle owner, but also there is enormous loss 
running through all classes concerned on the warbled hides. 
* During the year 1889, very widely extended investigations regarding warble- 
attack were set on foot, under the superintendence of Mr. A. S. Alexander, 
Member of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, and whilst still in 
this country one of the contributors to my own Annual Reports, then Editor to the 
‘ Farmer’s Review ’ of Chicago, U. S. A. Circulars were sent out by the proprietors 
of the paper over an enormous area of stock-producing country, and much informa¬ 
tion sent in, of which some was valuable, some not so, but when sifted and arranged, 
the reports are well worth attention. 
These will be found at length in the ‘Farmer’s Review’ (Offices 134, Van Bureu 
Street, Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A.), in Nos. for July 17th, 24th, 31st, and for August 
7th and 14th, 1889 ; and an abstract of these reports was published in the U. S. A. 
Department of Agriculture Bulletin entitled 1 Insect Life ’ for Nov. 1889. 
None but those very intimately concerned could be expected to wade through 
the mases of reports sent in, which I have, however, still at hand, but the above 
short abstract is of considerable interest. 
