The house-fly, Musca domestica Linn: its structure, habits, development, relation to disease and control . as been confirmed in my own observations. Flies which have 80 THE HABITS AND BIONOMICS OF THE HOUSE-FLY been allowed to feed naturally on coloured jam have been foundwith jam still in their crops on the second day after feeding. After feeding the fly usually retires to a quiet spot. Itinvariably cleans its head and proboscis, as is also the case withStomoxys. Very frequently it regurgitates its food from the cropin the form of large drops of fluid which may equal in diameter thedepth from
The house-fly, Musca domestica Linn: its structure, habits, development, relation to disease and control . as been confirmed in my own observations. Flies which have 80 THE HABITS AND BIONOMICS OF THE HOUSE-FLY been allowed to feed naturally on coloured jam have been foundwith jam still in their crops on the second day after feeding. After feeding the fly usually retires to a quiet spot. Itinvariably cleans its head and proboscis, as is also the case withStomoxys. Very frequently it regurgitates its food from the cropin the form of large drops of fluid which may equal in diameter thedepth from front to back of the head (fig. 34). This regurgitationof vomit drops conveys, as Graham-Smith, who has also observedand recorded the fact states, the impression that the flies havedistended their crops to an uncomfortable degree and that some ofthe food is regurgitated to relieve the distension. While this isconceivable, it is not unlikely that the regurgitation of the foodmay be primarily concerned in the digestion, as I have observed itto take place when there had been no unusual distension of the. Fig. 34. M. domestica in the act of regurgitating food, x 4i. crop. One can understand that the regurgitation would enablethe food to become mixed with an additional amount of salivaryfluid which would further facilitate the digestion on the absorptionof the drop. The drops are slowly extruded and then fly which I had under observation alternately and regularlyregurgitated and absorbed a drop of fluid eight times, each regurgi-tation and absorption lasting one and a half minutes. In somecases these vomit drops are deposited upon the surface on whichthe fly is resting and they may be easily recognised as light-coloured opaque spots (see fig. 35). Their colour will, of course,vary according to the nature of the flies last meal. Graham-Smith found that flies fed on coloured syrup often regurgitatedcoloured fluid 24 or more hours later, though fed in the intervalon unco
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