461 



on the Niger, and several of mangrove swamps which latter, he 

 said, were real hotbeds for mosquitoes. A large number of 

 mounted specimens of the insects dealt with were also shown. 



Dr. Spitta said that Sir Patrick Manson was an early member 

 of the Club he did not know him personally, but his son knew 

 him very well and he had mentioned that his earliest interest in 

 the study of insect life arose at the meetings of the Quekett 

 Club. 



The Hon. Secretary said that the earliest accounts of Filariae 

 published by Sir Patrick Manson appeared in The Quekett Club 

 Journal in 1880, having been sent by him to Dr. T. Spencer 

 Cobbold, who communicated them to the Club, of which he was 

 then President. 



The President said he had listened with great interest to 

 the paper which had been read that evening, which had 

 touched upon an extraordinarily wide field. Noticing that in 

 stables where fowls were kept there were very few flies, it 

 occurred to him that as the pupae of the flies were usually 

 found in loose earth, tliey were no doubt scratched up and 

 destroyed in large numbers by the fowls, and he had suggested 

 that fowls might be employed to keep down the numbers of the 

 flies ; nothing, however, came of the suggestion at the time. 

 When he was in Uganda it was not known where the pupae 

 of the tsetse- fly were to be found, but they were discovered soon 

 after by Dr. Bagshaw, who found them in the loose earth in 

 banana plantations. By a mere accident they were found on 

 tree trunks, because the flies in that part could not deposit their 

 eggs on the swampy ground bordering the waters. In the course 

 of investigations as to sleeping sickness, the natives had been 

 taught to look for these things, and on one occasion, when ^d^ 

 each was offered for them under the idea that perhaps 100 might 

 be brought in, 7,000 were brought in the course of a few days. 

 He suggested that the natives might be encouraged to keep 

 fowls, such as the Indian jungle fowl, from which our own stocks 

 were derived, as he felt sure that they would prove to be the 

 most effective of the enemies of the tsetse-fly. In one place each 

 coolie was made to wear a kind of fly-paper on his back, and in 

 this way large numbers of flies were caught. It was also found 

 that white clothing was a protection against flies, which settled 

 in large numbers on black. 



