91. Pupa case of Wine-fly.
An allied fly is the parent of the cheese maggot. The fly itself (Piophila casei, Fig. 90) is black, with metallic green reflections, and the legs are dark and paler at the knee-joints, the middle and hind pair of tarsi being dark honey yellow. The Wine fly is also a Piophila, and lives the life of a perpetual toper in old wine casks, and partially emptied beer, cider and wine bottles, where, with its pupa-case (Fig. 91), it may be found floating dead in its favorite beverage.
92. Bird Tick.
93. The Horse Tick.
We now come to the more degraded forms of flies which live parasitically on various animals. We figure, from a specimen in the Museum of the Peabody Academy of Science, the Bird tick (Ornithomyia, Fig. 92), which lives upon the Great Horned Owl. Its body is much flattened, adapted for its life under the feathers, where it gorges itself with the blood of its host.
Here belongs also the Horse tick (Hippobosca equina, Fig. 93). It is about the size of the house fly, being black, with yellow spots on the thorax. Verrill[4] says that "it attacks by preference those parts where the hair is thinnest and the skin softest, especially under the belly and between the hind legs. Its bite causes severe pain, and will irritate the gentlest horses, often rendering them almost unmanageable, and causing them to kick dangerously. When found, they cling so firmly as to be removed with some difficulty, and they are so tough as not to be readily crushed. If one escapes when captured, it will instantly return to the horse, or, perchance, to the head of its captor, where it is an undesirable guest. Another species sometimes infests the ox."
