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THE BOOK OF THE FLY
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MICROBES AND TOXINS
by DR. ETIENNE BURNET.
PREFACE by PROFESSOR E.
METCHNIKOFF
_Illustrated, Cr. 8vo, 5/- net._
"It is one of those works which French
authors seem to be especially skilful in
producing—works which, while they treat
their subject in the broadest possible
way, and in a manner to interest the
educated general reader as well as the
specialist, and yet at the same time
accurate and precise in detail."—_Lancet._
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
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THE BOOK OF
THE FLY
A NATURE STUDY OF THE
HOUSE-FLY AND ITS KIN,
THE FLY PLAGUE AND A CURE
BY
G. HURLSTONE HARDY
With an Introduction by
HALFORD ROSS.
[Illustration: logo]
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
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_London: William Heinemann, 1915_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE BY E. HALFORD ROSS, ESQ., M.R.C.S.,
L.R.C.P., &C.
I. A PRODUCT OF HUMAN INSANITATION 1
II. IDENTIFICATION OF THE COMMON HOUSE-FLY 7
III. SOME OTHER FLIES AND THEIR DIVERSE HABITS 16
IV. MYIASIS AND THE ŒSTRIDÆ 26
V. GENERAL LIFE HISTORY 33
VI. STRUCTURE OF THE HOUSE-FLY 43
VII. DISTRIBUTION AND CONCENTRATION OF FLIES 49
VIII. NATURAL ENEMIES OF FLIES 53
IX. DISSEMINATORS OF DISEASE 58
X. REMEDIAL MEASURES; CREMATION OF REFUSE 64
XI. CONTROL WITHIN THE HOUSE 71
XII. SERVICE AND UTILITY OF FLIES 78
XIII. A CAMPAIGN OF EFFECTIVE WARFARE, CONCLUSION 84
* * * * *
APPENDIX
DESCRIPTION OF THE WINGATE FLY CHART 89
TABLE OF WING CELLS AND VEINS 93
GLOSSARY INDEX OF TERMS USED 94
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SIXTY FAMILIES 95
NUMBERED LIST OF FAMILIES WITH DESCRIPTIVE
NOTES AND REFERENCES 108
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF FAMILIES 113
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Fig. 1. THE HOUSE-FLY, FEMALE, _Enlarged_ 6
Fig. 2. THE LESSER HOUSE-FLY, MALE, _Enlarged_ 6
Fig. 2a. THE STABLE-FLY, FEMALE, _Enlarged_ 6
Fig. 3. WING PATTERNS CONTRASTED 12
Fig. 5. METAMORPHOSIS; LARVA, INSTAR, IMAGO 39
Fig. 6. APPARATUS FOR THE BREEDING OF GENTLES 81
THE WINGATE FLY CHART (APPENDIX)
Plate I. EXTERNAL PARTS AND CHARACTERS, NAMED 88
Plate II. ANTENNÆ, MANY-JOINTED TYPES 97
Plate III. ANTENNÆ, THREE OR FEW-JOINTED TYPES 99
Plate IV. WINGS, TYPE-FORMS OF NEMOCERA 101
Plate V. WINGS, OTHER TYPE-FORMS 103
Plate VI. DETAILS OF SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS, ETC. 105
Plate VII. DITTO 107
NOTE. Fig. 4 has been found to be not available for this edition.
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PREFACE
The dangers of house-flies to the health of the community have come into
such recent prominence that the appearance of Major Hurlstone Hardy's
book should fill a want. It is written lucidly and clearly, yet in that
popular style which is so frequently lacking in scientific works. This
is a great advantage. Too often scientists are prone to bring out works
couched in terms which cannot be understood by an interested public that
is not versed in technical terms. Thus matter which is of the greatest
general importance is passed unread by many, and is, in consequence, not
acted upon.
Major Hardy has a knowledge of these deadly insects which, in my
opinion, is unsurpassed, because he has the personal experience of
practical experiment combined with the instincts of the naturalist. The
result is an account both accurate and interesting which should prove of
the greatest value.
The discovery of the transmission of disease by mosquitoes required the
passage of a decade before its essentials were grasped by the public
mind; that of the prevention of small-pox required a century. But the
dangers of house-flies is rapidly becoming known in consequence of the
popular literature, which is growing, describing the details of the
lives of these loathly creatures. In this way only can such knowledge be
spread—a knowledge which must become general before flies and the
maladies they convey can be generally and satisfactorily dealt with. It
is of little use to make great discoveries and then to hide them on the
musty bookshelves of learned societies. Instead, they should be adapted
to practical purposes applied for the good of suffering humanity; and
the best way to do this is to bring out well-written, interesting, and
easily read books of this kind, so that all who run may read and their
readings endure. This book should assist much to accomplish this end.
Thus we may look forward confidently to the day when house-flies, and
the diseases they carry, are things of the past. The "Book of the Fly"
must take its place in the history of the events which are to lead up to
the winning of that goal.
HALFORD ROSS
(_of the John Howard McFadden Researches at the_
_Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine_).
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THE BOOK OF THE FLY
CHAPTER I
THE HOUSE-FLY, A PRODUCT OF HUMAN
INSANITATION
With the present day zeal for popularising interest in common things
(called nature study) there has arisen the demand for knowledge
practically useful and thoroughly up-to-date, yet in a form free from
much of the technical terminology and treatment which are essential in
the student's more fully developed scientific handbook.
The "House-fly" is a fit subject for a simplified study of this kind,
and the present booklet is an attempt to afford information very
different to that of the "popular" works, which only were accessible to
the writer's hands between fifty and sixty years ago; the writers of
those old books all followed the lead of the reverend and learned
contributors to the famous and monumental "Bridgwater Treatises." "The
Wonders of Nature explained," "Humble Creatures" (a study of the
earth-worm and the house-fly, in popularised language), "The Treasury of
Knowledge," "Simple Lessons for Home Use," were the kind of cheaper
works in touch with a past generation; these latter and other later
well-intended publications will now be found to be somewhat deficient or
even a little misleading entomologically; they abounded in pious
sentimentality and mostly attempted an aggravatingly grandiose literary
style, but all have rather failed in teaching practical economic
utility, in connection with which nature-knowledge can be rendered as
interesting as any other kind of instructive literature. The tribe of
two-winged flies, in particular, has not even yet received a full and
adequate study by scientists. A preference has ever been shown towards
those other branches of entomology, which may be more interesting to the
cabinet-specimen collector, but which cannot pretend to have an equal
hygienic and economic importance to humanity.
The presence of the house-fly in our dwellings is often submitted to as
an irritating but an inevitable nuisance; yet very certain remedial
measures would almost exterminate the creature, which is a dangerous and
filthy peril. To many people it will seem a most incredible exaggeration
when told that it is really worse than any one of the less common
creatures universally regarded with horror and disgust as pestiferous
vermin. The surmise may be true that the disgusting body louse carried
bacteria, which spread the "black death"; and, even though the rat's
flea has been found to be the carrier transmitting bubonic plague, yet
amongst people living now in civilised communities within the temperate
zones these parasites cannot be ranked as dangerous equally with the
house-fly. The modern crusade against the house-fly is not based on any
such new discovery, as is that against the mosquito gnats, which are the
means of spreading zymotic diseases mainly in the tropics. The malignity
of the fly is recorded in most ancient history and folk-lore, yet not
very long ago there prevailed amongst certain classes opinions very
different to those of old as well as to those of the present day. A
short anecdote will perhaps amuse as well as explain those misplaced
sentiments, which have not quite died out.
In the middle of the last century there was a boy, thought to be too
delicate to be sent to school, who early earned for himself the
character of being a strange child. When barely more than nine years old
he visited an Aunt who was a veritable exemplar of genteel breeding and
propriety after the early Victorian pattern. There he was seriously
reprimanded for the "cruelty" of feeding his secret pets, which were
garden spiders, with flies which were, so the Aunt said, "poor innocent
creatures made by God for a useful purpose," but, she inconsequentially
added,—"Spiders were horrid." The strange child replied that the Devil
made the flies, and that God made the spiders to eat them. The
astonished Aunt then elicited the fact that the strange child's father
had explained, during a Sunday Bible lesson, that Beelzebub (the Devil)
meant Lord-of-flies.
This strange child was taken a walk over Doncaster Heath by the Aunt's
maid. There a dead rabbit was seen from which maggots were crawling, and
the maid explained that it was fly-blown. Next they both stroked and
patted a patient donkey, and the strange child observed maggots rolling
out of the donkey's nostril[1] on to the ground; he wondered much that
live animals should be fly-blown. He also saw with pity some cows,
around whose eyes flies clustered.
Pondering on these matters, one day he confided to the Aunt his
confirmed opinion in these words—"It seems, Aunt, to me that people who
won't kill flies deserve to be fly-blown." Doubtless, it would have been
better if he had expressed himself thus—People who will not kill fleas
deserve to be flea-bitten; and people who will not wage war against
flies deserve to be fly-tormented. However, the horrified Aunt mistook
the observation for insult and impudent rebellion, and what ensued need
not be related as pointing no useful moral. The strange child was merely
a genuine early nature student ahead of the times by some fifty or sixty
years. In due course he learnt a more orthodox account of "Creation,"
and the existence of mysteries in facts physiological and spiritual,
which can only be imperfectly comprehended in this world.
His craving for nature study was not satisfied with the reading of most
of the cheap books then published for the diffusion of knowledge.
Collecting butterflies and moths sufficed for some of his schoolfellows
in later years, but, not then having access to really good handbooks, he
became an original investigator in wide fields of nature study, and thus
learnt that many statements and opinions, which ordinarily even at the
present day pass current as facts, are erroneous and misleading.
Accordingly, the reader need not be surprised at some statements in the
following pages at variance with what may be met with elsewhere.
Footnote 1:
Stevens' Book of the Farm and many other publications describe the
similar affliction of sheep by _Œstrus ovis_ but omit to notice the
case of the donkey, which I have witnessed several times, but have
never seen a horse or pony thus afflicted. There is a fly termed
_Œstrus nasalis_, of which the victimised host is uncertain, for
Linnæus was mistaken in stating that the larvæ are found in the
_fauces_ of "horses, asses, mules, stags, and goats," _entering by the
nostril_.
The old fanciful dogma that everything existing was actually created "in
the beginning," and "for a purpose," was once ardently championed as
controverting aggressive Voltairean atheism, but it must be now
recognised as an unwarranted assumption, deduced from an orthodox
doctrine of "design," which in itself seems acceptably agreeable with
the idea of unity, consistency, and perfection in Creation and The
Creator. In fact the said "fanciful" dogma never really was an integral
part of Christian Catholic doctrine. The house-fly, as we know it, is
absolutely the developed product of human insanitation; scientifically
and practically it is a new "species" of an old "genus" established by a
long course of breeding in man-made environments.
[Illustration: Fig. 1. The House-Fly, Female, _Enlarged_.]
[Illustration: Fig. 2. The Lesser House-Fly, Male, _Enlarged_.]
[Illustration: Fig. 2a. The Stable-Fly, Female, _Enlarged_.]