Insecta. 267 



deals in considerable detail witli Climate and Rainfall. Sectiou III (p. 155) con- 

 tains the narrative of the author's observations. The order in wliich he visited 

 places is disregarded, and the various districts treated of in geographica! order. 

 Under each district or group of districts mention is made of the principal charac- 

 teristics, the occurrence and distribution of wild animals, the kinds and numbers 

 of domestic animals, the prevalence or absence of the various diseases, the li- 

 ability to (or immunity from) disease of newly-imported domestic animals, while 

 a list is added of the recorded blood-suckiug arthropods. In the district of Ifon 

 and Benin a very noteworthy feature is the presence of large herds of a dwarf 

 variety of cattle, very different from the varieties usually seen in Nigeria, and 

 apparently immune from trypanosomiasis: the goats also are short-legged and 

 diminutive, and a dwarf variety of horse is said to be bred: imported horses fall 

 victims to trypanosomiasis at once (p. 167). The death, in a little over a year, of 

 25 West Indian cattle imported to Onitsha is recorded on p. 171. A record of 

 the habits of Glossina palpalis at Sapele appears on p. 168: the fly appears in that 

 locality for a few weeks at the beginning of the rains and at one other period 

 in the year. It is an out-door fly, prevalent in the haunts of cattle; it does not 

 attack people in the open, but makes short visits to houses, frequently lurking 

 under chairs etc. and persistently attacking the ankles, hands, etc. 



In some places the difficulty of combating disease-carrying insects is extreme. 

 E. g., the town of Forcados is built on an island previously a mangrove-swamp, 

 and the surrounding countiy is a network of creeks and swamps. The level of 

 the ground has been artificially raised, but during the rains much of the island 

 is still submerged. Glossina is abundant, and the number of mosquitos enormous. 

 The effect of regulations against allowing mosquitos to breed in native dwellings 

 is almost negligible, in view of the enormous surrounding breeding-areas. Their 

 numbers can only be reduced by reclaiming and raising the level of the land 

 (p. 169, 170). On p. 177 a small fish, Hemichromis fasciaius (Cichlidae), is men- 

 tioned as a probable destroyer of mosquito-larvae. 



Section IV (p. 183) contains a list of all the blood-sucking Arthropoda 

 hitherto recorded from S. Nigeria: 62 species of Culicidae, 34 Tabanidae, 15 Mus- 

 cidae (incl. 9 sp. of Glossina belonging to all the 4 groups of the genus), 5 Chi- 

 ronomidae, 1 Simuliid, 1 Psychodid, 1 Hippoboscid, 5 Siphonaptera, 1 sp. of Ano- 

 plura, 1 Cimicid, and 11 Ixodidae. Section V (p. 186) contains remarks on the 

 insect-borne diseases, Malaria, Yellow Fever, Sleeping Sickness, Elephantiasis, Ca- 

 labar Swelling, Trypanosomiasis of Stock, Piroplasmosis, and Plague. Section VI 

 (p. 187) deals in some detail with the distribution of Glossina in S. Nigeria, and 

 in N. and S. Nigeria considered as a whole. From the latter it is evident that 

 Trypanosomiasis of cattle and horses is not associated with only one species: it 

 is prevalent in the Lake Chad area, where only G. tachinoides and G. siibmorsitans 

 are found, and is equally prevalent in the western province of S. Nigeria, where 

 G. palpalis and G.longipalpis are predominant (p. 191). Section VII (p. 191) 

 deals with the distribution of Stecjomyia. 5 species are recorded from S. Nigeria; 

 by far the commonest is *S'. fasciata, which has a wide distribution in the Colony, 

 and is very abundant in the Niger delta region and the coast-towns. Yellow Fever 

 is present in the Colony, and there is constant risk- of its spreading: while it is 

 by no means certain that S. fasciata is the only species capable of transmitting it. 

 Every effort should be made to reduce the numbers of Stegomyia, which breeds 

 in small collections of water (and is not commonly found near swamps), by sani- 

 tary regulations in towns etc. H. Scott (Cambridge). 



