e and greater care in keeping them
closed.

[Illustration: An open closet to which the house fly has free access.
Such a closet is the most dangerous accessory of any home.]

STUDY OF THE FLY AND ITS WORK

Observe first of all the feeding habits of the fly. What foods in the
home is it most fond of? Make a list of all the food materials it is
found to feed on. Where and on what is it found feeding out doors? Do
you find it feeding on filth and if so, on what? Do you find it about
the barn? Where is it usually found in the barn? How can the fly carry
filth to food materials?

In studying the breeding of the fly determine where it lays its eggs and
where the maggots are found. Examine fresh manure in the stable and see
if you can find small white maggots about half an inch long and as large
around as the lead in a pencil. If you do, place some of them with some
fresh manure in a glass jar and see what becomes of them. In a few days
the maggots will disappear and in their places small oval, brown
bean-like objects will appear. A few days later these will crack open at
one end and the fly will crawl out. Keep records of the length of time
it requires for the pest to pass from one stage to the other. If maggots
cannot be gotten put some fresh manure in the jar and catch a number of
live house flies and put them in with the manure and watch for results.
Collect a jar of fresh manure with maggots and sift over it a little
powdered borax and see what happens to the maggots. Where horse manure
can not be properly disposed of, cheap borax is used to throw over piles
of manure to destroy the maggots and prevent the flies from breeding in
it. Write a brief description of the different stages and make careful
drawings of these. Do not mistake the house fly for other flies often
found on food in the home.

Collect a few flies and put them in a bottle and drop in with them just
a few crumbs of sugar and watch them feed. They cannot chew but a little
saliva from the mouth dissolves a little of the sugar which is then
lapped up as syrup. Notice what a peculiar sucker they have for drawing
up liquids. How can they crawl along in the bottle with their backs
toward the floor? Examine the tip of their feet for a small glue pad
which sticks to the glass. These glue pads and the sucker are well
fitted for carrying filth. Examine the fly carefully and write a brief
description of it. What color is it? How many legs? How many wings? Are