S. Mahunka szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 46/2. (Budapest, 1985)
A review of the whole of the subject is out of our project now but here only those works are mentioned which were frequently used or which proved to be most valuable in our present work. After HAMMER's (1942) pioneer studies in Denmark, research on flies pestering cattle was and has been mainly conducted in North America. To illustrate the above statement we can quote the excellent review of PICKENS and MILLER (1980) on the biology and control of the face fly (M. au tumnalis) , where 180 papers of the 190 papers cited were published by scientists in the U.S.A. and Canada. Among the papers on the ecology of the larvae of Haematobia irritans , only the works of PALMER et al. (1981) and PALMER and BAY (1982) are mentioned here. There are also publications for the exact evaluation of the economical loss caused by these two species; e.g. PALMER and BAY (1981) gave a critical review of the economical importance of H. irritans on the basis of their own investigations; ARENDS et al. (1982) determined the economical loss caused by M. au tumnalis in a measurable way (effect on weight gains and feed efficiency). The ecological studies in Australia on Haematobia Irritans exigua (e.g. COOK and SPAIN, 1982) and the explorations of the interactions between the larvae of Musca vetustlssima and H. Ir ritans exigua and the various species of dung beetles (for a detailed bibliography see WALLACE and TYNDALE-BISCOE, 1983) have called attention also in other parts of the World. SHINONAGA and KANO (1973, 1974, etc.) published their taxonomical results on the flies of pasturing cattle in Japan. The scientists of the British Isles have reached valuable results in our field of science; e.g. HILLERTON et al. (1983, 1984) published on the transmission of summer mastitis by the imagos of Hydrotaea irritans and on the distribution of dominant secretophagous species over the bodies of cattle, WRIGHT and TITCHENER (1979) on the control of fly infestation, etc. In Hungary PAPP (1971, 1976) studied flies developing in cattle droppings from the point of view of production biology, ecology of larvae, etc. More recently some CzechoslovaMan colleagues have achieved remarkable results by revealing specific diversity of the secretophagous dipteran species (GREGOR and MINÁR, 1980), by verifying the role of Hydrotaea armipes imagos in the transmission of infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis (DUS B ÁBE K et al., 1982, GREGOR and DUSBÁBEK, 1982). NIBARUTA (1982) performed valuable complex work on the flies developing in cattle droppings in the pastures of Belgium, revealing not only species-composition but also seasonality and ecological features of the populations. The above few examples form a major part of the studies in the European continent. We must admit here that among the cattle pestering fly species of different life-habits, MAJER (1984) studied species composition, dominance and economical Importance of the Hungarian species of the family Tabanidae. The Hungarian species of the family Ceratopogonidae - though they are important both as regard the number of species and their role as vectors of diseases - have not been studied. On the basis of the data in the literature and of our earlier experience we had an opinion that we can exclude even the future possibility of a single method which could alone solve the problems in the control of fly populations in pastures; we have no reason to accept the control strategy widely used hitherto ("apply newer and newest molecules by the old methods"). In view of all these we endeavoured to work out a long-term programme which aimed at a better understanding of the biological features of the individual species and at the application of this new knowledge In the control of the pest species. Below the results of our studies obtained in the last two years are published and we made an attempt at a synchronous evaluation of the significance of the fly imagos and the larvae developing in cattle droppings. Materials and methods Flies were netted from the back and the head of cattle in corrals or in the free pastures and from their environs (Tables 2 and 3). A new type of aspirators was applied to collect imagos feeding on conjunctiva and around the eyes of tethered cows and calves; this is a modified aspirator originally used for culicids: it has a concave-conical distal end and it is with a thick plastic exhausting tube with a length of an arm (measurements of the body cf our aspirator: diameter 29 mm, thickness of its glass wall 1.5 mm, diameter of the aspiration hole 6 mm, diameter of the suction hole 12.5 mm). Samples of one to three days old cattle droppings were collected on the pastures (in Mezó'hék also in corrals), which were placed in wide glass jars with the aid of a sharp-edged spade in order not to change their original stratigraphy (cf. PAPP, 1971). The imagos were reared in a laboratory
