The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1910-05-14 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

SOMETHING- TO DO. • It will be an act of service to humanity, for it.would hardly be an exaggeration to state that there is no other insect knciwn so dangerous to the human community in its •.faculty of spreading- disease, and especially •where children are concerned too great care cannot be. taken to .keep milk and fOod away from contact ,with this °Mai'voraue insect. There seems but little doubt that the house-fly is the Means of conveying manY 'Serious summer complaints • among babies. Omnivorous it is in its habits; it Bias 'from one form of food to another, spd will carry to clean food, both on the mouth •parts and the bristly idhesiVe pads of its feet, any filth it may 'come in--contact with, as-well. as the bacteria bred.thereon. Furthermore, flies themselves are liable to n fungoid disease, and at.certain times they 'may be seen sticking to the window panes or lying_ about od.l c•-imers covered with a mouldy, _grey eliich is called flymould. When it i eal4ed -that this diseases is brought a •-t by the attack of one species of plant. clled " eudoparesitic," and that these end, darasitic pleats., are blameable for a number of skin complaints that- visit human beings, among them being the scourges ringworm and barber's rash, it will be seen that excessive care should be taken that, places be kept free and clean from these creatures, either dead or alive. Now is the time, according to Mr. Austen. to enter upon the sport of fly-killing. The natural aversion to flies which we find in children, cats, and dogs, is a sound and not a blameable instinct. Had we not better borrow it from them. Let us set about it at once, and let all idle people who complain- that they have nothing to do make a hobby ;of fly murder without delay. It will net be necessary to register at the Labour Exchanges.. • AIBIORNATING OR MIGRATING? • An example of the tendency there -is to sacrifice scientific accuracy in the cause of "popular itady, the existence of which I have referred (" note-book", April •23rd '1910) is to fie-found in the recently published portfolio of sketches and intended for the wane-, of schoolrooms. Notes on -butterflies and moths are furnished by Mr. W. S. Furneaux, who while a pretty'safe authority, has fallen into the common' error of describing the Painted Lady butterfly as an hibernator. The Painted Lady represents the family (the Vanessidae or Anglewings) which includes some of the most gorgeou% and most familiar of our-butterflies, fof 'here belong the Peacock, the Red Admiral, the Tortoiseshell, and also the rare Camberwell Beauty; and is only secondarily a British insect. Naturally, it would 68M to belong' to the Mediterranean region and to Northern Africa, and a large proportion of these specimens which are open in 'England- (probably all .which apleer in' the earlier months of thiAelif) are .oaogoe visitors from abroad. vvimat worldAwe is • there of the Painted'.Ladforited  Admiral- hibernatiag-in. this. countr!? . No authentic instance a the qccurrence has been reoorded, • ttad from this one may safely infer thatth are migrittotry*species. although current.svks on. British LePidoPters class them as hibernators., The evioioe de ence, however. is all th. other may. Painted Ladies and ilisd'AllM '•iior. Usually appear on the-vita:Wu • the end of May. whereas speoiee 1114101 r =to hibernate are seen much earlisr,Asith the burst 6f sun. In some years thee are scarce or altogether absent: in others . sere abundant. This is more easily explained on the assumption of migration than -:of Atibernation. ...• t. •