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happens to the best portions of the best hides,—a sheer 
waste of money, calculable by many thousands of pounds 
annually. 
From the returns of amount of warbled hides received in 
given periods, and losses thereon, which I was favoured with 
from some of our leading British Hide Firms and Societies 
(and which I have given in detail, with sender’s name, in my 
Twelfth Annual Report), I add notes of items of loss at three 
localities, just to show what is going forward. 
In a period of twelve months, 102,877 hides passed through 
the market; of these, 60,000 were warbled. Loss estimated 
at <£15,000.—J. McGr. 
In five months, 61,108 hides passed, of which 14,830 were 
warbled. Loss, L2873.—W. M. & Son. 
In four months, 12,133 hides passed; about one-third of 
this amount estimated as warbled, at a total loss of LI041. 
—W. w. 
It is sometimes said that this loss does not matter to the 
farmer;—but IT DOES ! Every one of those warbled hides 
is a sign of so much out of the farmer’s pocket for the food he 
spent in feeding grubs in his cattle’s backs, which should 
have gone to form meat and milk, instead of being wasted in 
foul maggot-sores ; and the quantities of hides of dead beasts 
brought in with their backs “in a mass of jelly,” show there 
IS loss going on to an extent that no farmer would allow to go 
on if he did but know the cause, and the easy cure. 
The aggregate amount of this loss is something enormous. 
As I have previously noted elsewhere, this is variously 
estimated, by different practical men, as being from two to 
seven millions pounds sterling, at the least , per annum. 
Mr. R. Stratton, of the Duffryn, Newport, Monmouthshire, 
who has devoted especial attention to warble loss, writes 
me:—“ I am sure it cannot be less than LI per head of 
horned stock, and it is probably much more.” 
From the cattle owner’s point of view, we have to consider 
the direct injury to health and fattening powers so quietly 
borne that its existence is often not recognised; and (even in 
cases where the attack is completed by death) it may happen 
that it is not until the riddled hide is lifted from the jellied 
back that the reason of the trouble is made known, which a 
quarter of an hour’s care, and outlay of a few pence earlier in 
the year, would have quite prevented. Besides this is the 
well-known damage in dairy and other herds from loss of 
milk and harm to the cows, and loss of flesh to fattening 
beasts by tearing about (to use again the words of Mr. Stratton) 
“ at as good a pace as can be got out of them.” 
