REI’OKT ON ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
219 
munhers. Unless it occurs to the native to use an old empty hut as a latrine, a strip 
of desert about 100 yards from tlie village or the nearest standing crop of dura serves 
the purpose, and when it is rcniemhei’cd how many flies will breed out from a single deposit 
of ordure it is not surprising that one frequently finds it necessary when staying in a native 
village to put up a mosquito curtain if one desire peace during the heat of the day. 
The so-called “ Zihla ” is another breeding place of flies. Zihla is a mixture of stable 
refuse, cow-dung, etc., which, having been allowed to ferment, is utilised for building 
purposes. ^Yhen once it has dried it becomes quite free from maggots, but while it is 
being prepared many flies deposit eggs in it. 
The doctors of both the Civil and Military Hospitals, as well as certain ollicials in 
the Public Works Department and other offices, very kindly collected and sent to the 
Laboratories numbers of flies which were making themselves a nuisance in the wards and 
offices, and I was thus able to ascertain which species occurred most frequently in such 
places. The more common of these have been sent to Mr. E. E. Austen, of the British 
iMuseum, for identification. 
The two species which appear to he equally prevalent are .Ifa.'ira. ilome>:tica, Linn., and 
one that I take to be 3/. corvinn, Fabr., and it was these two that were most frequently 
obtained from human ordure, stable refuse and zibla. 
LarviB and pupie of M. ddiiwutica and .1/. corvu/a were taken from the shallow trenches 
at the Sewage Farm, but it is improbable that flies come from there into the town owing to 
the distance they would have to traverse. 
The two species of the genus Vijcnoavma — P. manjinale, Wied., and P. pntorium, Wied. — 
mentioned in the Second Report of these Laboratories^ both occur in Khartoum. 
Blistek Beetles 
(/;) Family, Canfluiriilidte 
Plate XXX., fig. 1 
During the rainy season one not infrequently awakes in the morning to find on the 
neck, wrists or other exposed parts a large and painful blister, such as might have been 
caused by scalding with boiling water. This is the work of one of the Gaidharidce or blister 
beetles, known to the natives as P'asseea -—in Kassala — Garnlza or by the very appropriate 
name of Ahu ndr —father of fire. 
The common species in Khartoum is the steel-blue Epicanfa ga.pphi/rina, Miihl (fig. 1). 
Another blister beetle frequently seen in Khartoum is Mylahrix niyniplaiitin, Kliig. This 
beetle has the head and thorax black, densely clothed with greyish pubescence ; elytra buff 
with a spot on each basal angle, a transverse row of four spots, a transverse mark 
resembling, when the elytra are closed, the letter M, and a similar though less complete 
mark near the extremities, black ; antennae and legs ochraceous ; length 12 mm. 
The life-cycle of the CaHtharidie is very complex. One species in this country is 
beneficial in its larval stages, feeding on the eggs of the migratory locust, Schixtocerca 
pereijrinaA 
' Second Koport, Wellcome Kesearch Ijaliomtories, p. GG. 
- First Report, Wellcome Research Laboratories, 1904, p, 39. 
^ page 236 of this Report. 
“ Zibla” as a 
breeding place 
for hies 
Khartoum 
blister beetles 
