Summary
Based on morphological and histological investigations it was proved in a number of experiments that the house‐fly (Musca domestica) having a small number of olfactory organs, percepts sources of smell for short distances only. It was shown, however, that flies are strongly attracted to a great many products of various scents, some of wich are devoid of any nutritivnal value.
In addition, the flies are able to detect abundant sources of food by means of olfactory stimuli of the antennae as well as by hydrotaxy and thermotaxy. Furthermore, there is a secondary optically piloted ”herd instinct„ manifesting that motionslessly feeding flies attract to the nutrional source more flies over a fairly wide distance. The so called ”fly‐factor„ of Barnhart and Chadwick (1935) is based on this particular gregarious behaviour.
It is concluded from the experiments, that baits based on smell alone are of little promise in house‐fly control.
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