Obs. On the large scale, crude tartar is employed in the preparation of fluxes; on the small scale, commercial cream of tartar or bitartrate of potassa.
FLY. The common house-fly (Musca domestica) causes considerable annoyance to the person in hot weather, as well as damage to handsome furniture, especially to picture frames, gilding, and the like. The best way to exterminate them is to expose on a plate
one or other of the mixtures given under Fly Poison (below). The blow-fly (Musca vomitoria), and other insects, may be kept from attacking meat by dusting it over with black pepper, powdered ginger, or any other spice, or by skewering a piece of paper to it on which a drop or two of creasote has been poured. The spices may be readily washed off with water before dressing the meat.
It is a fact not generally known, that flies will not pass through a netting made of fine silk, thread, or wire, even though the meshes may be an inch apart, unless there is a window or light behind it. This affords us a ready means of excluding these insects from all our apartments which have windows only on one side of them, without keeping the latter closed. It is merely necessary to have an ornamental netting stretched across the opening, when, although flies may abound on the outside, none will venture into the room so protected. If, however, there is a window on the other side of the room, they will fly through the netting immediately. See below.
Fly-blow in Sheep. Oil of turpentine, 3 oz.; oil of amber, 1 oz.; corrosive sublimate, 1 dr. The sublimate must be first dissolved in a pint of whey, and then mixed with the oils.
Fly Papers. Those papers which, a few years ago, were sold about the streets of London by harsh-voiced cries of “Catch ′em alive-oh!” and which might be seen in many shop-windows covered with dead and dying flies, were prepared by rubbing factitious birdlime over sheets of paper. It would be difficult to conceive a more cruel or more offensive mode of catching flies than that of glueing their living bodies to an adhesive surface. A preferable kind of fly-paper is that called ‘PAPIER MOURE,’ which contains a large quantity of arsenic in its substance.[317] This paper is kept wet when in use, and the flies, by sipping the moisture, are poisoned.
[317] Mr Plowman, in a letter to the ‘Pharm. Journ.,’ June 22nd, 1878, says that in a specimen of “Papier Moure” examined by him he failed to detect the least trace of arsenic.
Fly Poison. Prep. 1. A strong solution of white arsenic (say 1 dr. to the pint), sweetened with moist sugar, treacle, or honey. Sold under the name of ‘Fly water,’
2. Treacle, honey, or moist sugar, mixed with about 1⁄12th their weight of King’s yellow or orpiment.
Obs. Both the above are dangerous preparations, and should never be employed where there are children.