HOUSE FLY’S DISLIKES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1059, 25 August 1930, Page 13

HOUSE FLY’S DISLIKES

COLOURS WHICH HE HATES A man who wondered why the flies on his dining-room lamp shade never settled on the window curtains has given science a clue which may revolutionise the war against insect pests, says the "Sunday Express.” He reported his armchair musings to a scientific laboratory, and from their experiments springs this remarkable discovery:—Flies hate red and yellow; they love blue and green. That is the finding of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. It is argued that if you decorate your home with red curtains, yellow ceilings, and orange wallpaper, .he house fly flies —straight out of the window.

The tests which followed the amateur’s observations were thus described to a “Sunday Express” representative by Professor W. Patton, die well-known entomologist: “The layman noted that flies seemed to be attracted by one range of colours and to shun another set of colours used in household decoration. “This led to systematic investigation by scientists, which produced results of great value. “It was found that flies showed a marked antipathy* for the red range of colours. If any other colour was in sight tiiey settled on it instantly. Blue drew them like a magnet. The fly is attracted by violet, blue, green. The fly is repelled by red, orange, yellow. “Data already collected would suggest that if there were a national campaign to guide the decoration of hospital wards, kitchens, larder;;, schoolrooms and other interiors, the menace of germ-carrj-ing flies could be substantially reduced. “The difficulty would he to get the whole population to adopt red-yellow colour schemes for house decoration."