The House Fly, Disease Carrier: An Account of Its Dangerous Activities and of the Means of Destroying it

Leland Ossian Howard

jan 1911. · Frederick A. Stokes Company

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Excerpt from book: II THE NATURAL ENEMIES OF THE TYPHOID AS with every other living creature, nature makes its own effort to limit the abundance of the fly under consideration, and the extraordinary facility for multiplication which the fly possesses is in turn the result of the instinctive effort of the organism to maintain its status in spite of the numerous enemies which confront it. The natural enemies of the house fly begin with the acme of the vertebrate series (man himself) and end with the lower forms of plant life, and we will begin our consideration of these agencies with the latter forms. Fungous Diseases In the autumn it is a matter of common observation that many flies in houses and on the windows become sluggish and frequently die in such positions. The sluggishness may be accounted for in a measure by the advent of cold weather, and as a matter of fact cold weather frequently drives indoors other species of flies of a more sluggish nature than the house fly. In this way the so-called cluster fly (Pollenia rudis), a rather sluggish species, which will be referred to in another chapter, is frequently found in houses in the autumn. But the principal cause of the sluggishness on the part of the house fly in the autumn is the attack of fungous diseases. Sometimes they are found to be dead without any evidence of the cause of death. Later they are seen to be surrounded by a white fungus growth. There is a group of fungi belonging to the En- tomophthoreae, many of which are parasitic upon insects. There are several genera in this group, but the only one which need be considered at present is the genus Empusa. The fungi of this group have been studied by Dr. Roland Thaxter of Harvard University, and it is from his writings that the following statements have been drawn.