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 these transparent? Behind the wings there is a pair of small stubs which is all that is left of the hind pair of wings. Are the eyes large? Can you find a pair of small feelers? Why can you not pick up a fly like you would a grasshopper? Is their eye sight good? Why are they always most abundant on a kitchen screen door? Can they smell? What are the fly's worst enemies? Will the toad eat them? Do chickens eat them? Have you ever seen chickens scratching in manure and feeding on the fly maggots? Put a few drops of formaldehyde, which you can get from a druggist, in a few spoonfuls of sweet milk or sugar syrup and let the flies eat it and see what happens to them. This is one of our best poison baits for flies which get in the home or collect about the dairy. Formaldehyde is a poison and when used in bait it must be kept out of reach of children. Just about frost, in the fall, watch for the appearance of inactive flies on walls, windows and other parts of the house. These have been attacked by a parasitic disease. These are often found sticking to walls and other objects about the room in the winter, and are commonly thought to be passing the winter. * * * * * "_The insect we now call the 'house fly' should in the future be termed the 'typhoid fly,' in order to call direct attention to the danger of allowing it to continue to breed unchecked._" --L. O. HOWARD. CHAPTER V THE MOSQUITO Here we have another small insect which, like the house fly, is extremely dangerous, due to its ability to carry the germs of disease. There are hundreds of species of mosquitoes, some small, some large. The majority of these are unable to carry disease so far as we know at present, but they should be avoided as dangerous. The Missouri forms which carry disease are the so-called malarial fever mosquitoes, and they are entirely responsible for the transmission of this sapping and often fatal disease. In the warm countries these are more abundant and the fever is more fatal. In the south there is still another disease-carrying mosquito, the yellow fever mosquito. This form is most dangerous of all.