ABSTRACT
Investigation of the feeding of Lucilia larvae on meat suggested that the chief factors involved are mechanical maceration and the alkaline reaction which results in the first place from bacterial action.
Larvae suck the fluid serum from acid muscle ; they ingest semi-liquid food only when the reaction is alkaline or the free liquid has been removed.
Predigestion of the muscle substance is apparently not essential, as the crop contents often consist of insoluble protein.
The proteolytic enzymes in the larval excreta, which include a collagenase, probably serve to digest the structural parts of muscle tissue.
In a private communication Dr G. Salt informed me that he carried out some unpublished experiments on this point at the Farnham House Laboratory. He found that Lucilia larvae can penetrate the skin of recently killed, small animals.
