THE HOUSE ELY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 240, 7 September 1928, Page 2

THE HOUSE ELY

A COAIAION PEST,

ADDRESS AT OPTIAIISTS’ CLUB.

The speaker at to-day’s meeting of the Y.AI.C.A. Optimists Lunch Club was AH’ L. F. Cooper, bacteriologist of tho Palmerston North Hospital, who gave some interesting information concerning tho common house fly. At LI. Butcher presided over a good attendance. . The fly, said Air Cooper in openin„, was man’s constant companion, going with him from the heat of the tropics to the extreme cold of the polai legions. The creature was t 9 be seen everywhere, feeding indiscriminately, on tho streets and the daintiest tablo in the land. The popular idea that the house fly sometimes bit was wrong, as the proboscis or mouth was adapted to sucking. Food was taken into the body through thirty small channels, a small pump coming into action to suck up the nourishment, which, by means ut ejected saliva, w r as dissolved before being taken up. , A fly had a crop in which it stored food, which it digested at leisure, and an elaborate digestive system enabling it to deal with _ the various classes of food taken. A single female fly was capable of depositing from 100 to 150 eggs at a time, and during its short life, of from seven to sixteen weeks might lay several sittings. The answer to the well-known query, “What becomes of the flvs in winter ” was that most of them died, •but- some hibernated, having a fat reserve to sustain life while lying dormant. In conclusion, Air Cooper emphasised the fact that flies frequently spread disease, and where they congregated most there was sure to bo some hygienic or sanitary law being broken.

The speaker was accorded the chib’s official vote of thanks for his interesting address.