80 THE LAKE 



until he dies ! Other still smaller species of two-winged 

 flies have an extraordinary liking for singing their high- 

 pitched song inside one's ears, until one can bear it no 

 longer and retires beneath the mosquito net. 



To these nuisances may be added an enormous male 

 ant {Dorylus) with shiny, hard, light brown body over an 

 inch long, who bangs himself against the lamp, and returns 

 however often he be thrown outside with contumely, 

 until one is forced to go against one's scruples, and bottle 

 him. I have dispatched as many as twenty on one evening. 

 They are a very reliable sign of coming rain if they are 

 seen in any number : the workers also are much more 

 often seen on the march before rainy weather. Termites, 

 likewise, are much more harmful in wet weather, and 

 cover the timbers of one's house with earth with sur- 

 prising rapidity at such times. 



The biting flies known as " buffalo gnats " (Simulium) 

 are especially eager to bite in the early morning or evening 

 before rain on the islands. Thus on July 26, 1914, 

 on Kome Island, is noted in my journal : " I went down 

 to the rocky shore before breakfast, and was set upon by 

 a swarm of viciously biting Simulium. In the evening 

 many Ephemeridae came to the lamp." Next morning, 

 after daybreak, there was the worst thunderstorm I 

 had ever experienced on Kome. 



The night time on the islands, apart from thunder- 

 storms, has charms of its own, A number of sounds 

 are to be heard from sunset until the small hours, when 

 for a while there is silence until the first glimmerings of 

 dawn. The thunderous snortings of hippos, the muffled 

 bark of the Situtunga, break in upon the continuous shrill 

 tinkling sound, curiously suggesting sleigh bells, produced 

 by thousands of small frogs along the shore. Crickets 

 chirp all round and in the house, and during the rains one 

 enormous species, sitting just inside the mouth of its 

 burrow, makes the earth resound with a continuous high- 



