El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-04-22
wv ASHINGTON, April Ply
w time is ON the point OF ar,
w r-irr;nr NNha4 1rea slIreS shalt

w time is on the point of ar
irving. What measures shat
be taken to fight the pest, now recog
nized (withoIIt exaggerationl as TN
most dangerous to mankind OF all living
| animals.
| Children, of course, are its prlnclpa
/ victims. According to a reliable reck-
oning, it will kill $4,000 of the little
! ones in this country during the next slX
months. A great majority OF them Will
| be DESTROYED by summer complaint,
| of which disease, by fOuling milk and
! other food supplies, the house fly is al
most the exclusive distributing agent.
Autos Make Fewer Flies.
Oddly enough, the house fly and the
automobile have come into a direct re-
| lation to each other For motor vehicles
| have greatly lessened the number OF
| horses kept In stables, which are the
fly-hatcheries par excellence, producing
95 percent Of all the flies that affliet
urban communities. Hence there has
been marked drop in the death rate
from typhoid and (among children sum-
mer complaint. In the best" residen-
tial sections of our big cities today
there are almost no flies in summer time,
owing to the absence of horses.
Awakened to the seriousness of this
matter to the people at large, the fed
eral government recently has been max
ing thorough study of house flies from
every imaginable viewpoint. In order to
secure satisfactory photographs of the
living insects enormously magnified by
suitable apparatus), DIR. Y. A Cobb, of
the department of agriculture. has en-
ployed the poison of the mud-wasp to
paralyZe without killing them This
species of wasp is accustomed to use its
sting to reduce to helplessness various
InSnefc -hiob - A.
provender for its Young. Borrowing the
idea, Dr.: Cobb kills a mudwasD and de-
taches Its abdomen, which still retains
enough vitality to cause the sting at its
extremity to work out and in automat-
icallv.
Often, under such circumstances. a
drop or poison viii be seen to eXllde from
the point of sting, and this may be taken
on the end of fine wire and thrust
into the body of the fly. But DR.. Cobb
found that, If the abdomen was skill
fully manipulated with a pair of deli
cate forceps, the sting itself could be
used for the purpose. In either case the
effect upon the fly was temporary and
complete paralysis, which rendered it
Illustrate subject for the camera.
A Study of the House Fly.
A study of the house fly's rather COM
pick anatomy has shown that the in
SeCI sIoHacn winch IS very large, IS
located near the tail end of its bod
Thus, when it eats, one may see this
part swell visibly. But the organ in
question might more properly be called
a crop, inasmuch as it is merely a reser-
voir to contain the food for a while until
the animal is ready to attend to the
business of digesting it. When this time
arrives, the food passes o.;t of the crop
and forward almost the entire length of
the body, thereupon finding its way into j
the intestine.
Nearly the whole of the rear segment !
of the fly's body, catside of the crop |
IS occupied b. an air cavity, so as to |
allow the food-storage reservoir to dis |!
tend. The sO-called ''brain" of the insect !
is in the back part of its head; but it is |
not certain that this is not merely an
optic lobe. having to do only with visual
and related directl- to the |
eyes DR. Cobb is inclined /
to think that the fly does its real think
INC in a bunch of "ganglia7 composed
Of nerve structure) in the middle of its
chest.
The antennae are provided with curl
1us plumes, which may have something
% do tn the sense of hearing, responding
TO vibrations As for the mouth, the
fact is well known that the house fly
las no apparatus for biting. It's proboscis
in very elaborate organ
which tastes and feels, and which in