I thought you would not object to my keeping a copy of your letter to his Grace.
The Committee of the “London Farmers’ Club” which I daresay you know more about than I do, but which I believe to be the great Farmers’ Club of England, has sent me an urgent request to read them a paper on Injurious Insects, at their meeting place, the Salisbury Square Hotel, London, in next April. Professor Herbert Little, one of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society, brought me the message, and at first I felt fairly frightened at the idea, and tried to “make excuse,” for it is a somewhat anxious prospect (in the words of old John Knox) for a gentlewoman to look in the face of so many “bearded men and not be over much afraid,” but I got such serious remonstrance, almost rebuke, from various quarters that I have consented to endeavour to prepare as good a paper as I can, and read it myself. Now if you permit me—I think that in the portion about warbles it would be very useful (and much more telling than any words of my own) to give your terse, clear and attractively worded account of what really has happened.
1, Egg; 2, maggot; 3 and 4, chrysalis-case; 5 and 6, fly. 3 and 5, natural size, after Bracy Clark; the other figures after Brauer, and all magnified.
FIG. 5.—OX WARBLE FLY, OR BOT FLY, HYPODERMA BOVIS, DE GEER.
FIG. 6.—PIECE OF YEARLING SKIN WITH 402 WARBLE-HOLES.
(Greatly reduced by photography.)
The following extract is the chief part of the letter by Mr. Bailey to the Duke of Westminster (October 28, 1887):—
My Lord Duke,—I was very thankful to see by last Saturday’s Chester Chronicle, that at the Chester Dairy Show you drew the attention of our farmers to the enormous loss caused by the presence of ox warbles in our cattle. During the past three years, I have been directing the notice of my pupils to the mischief done by these warbles, and, as we have now nearly stamped out this pest in Bunbury Parish, it has occurred to me that your Grace might be interested in learning the course which we have taken, and also in seeing how very easily our farmers might get rid of this enemy. The great majority of the boys in this school are either sons of farmers, or of farm labourers. After the boys had received from me a short lesson on the Warble fly, they were asked to examine their cattle at home, and to bring to school as many specimens as they could collect of the maggots of this fly. Hundreds were squeezed out and brought in the course of a few days. One boy alone destroyed 230 of these warble grubs in the spring of 1885 by the application of common cart grease and sulphur to the spiracle in the black tipped tail of the maggot or by squeezing out the maggots. [Vide Miss Ormerod’s ninth Annual Report on Injurious Insects and Common Farm Pests, p. 92.] Last Easter I desired my pupils, during the week’s holiday, to examine carefully the live stock at home for ox warble and to report to me. I enclose a copy of the first list which I received, and I am sure it will satisfy your Grace that this pest may easily be stamped out, if our farmers, their sons, or their labourers would apply the smear, or press out the maggots and destroy them. School boys can do this work, and feel a pleasure in the task. What has been accomplished by Bunbury boys can be equally well done by the boys of any other village school.[[52]]
