WERNER MARCHAND 197 



Neave, who was raising many different tabanid species in southern 

 Nyasaland, found that the best receptacles which he could obtain 

 locally were the small basin-shaped vessels made of hard clay by the 

 natives. These were of various sizes, from six inches to a foot in 

 diameter. They were placed separately under cages made of mos- 

 quito netting on a wood framework. Neave recovered the larvae 

 for examination or other purposes merely by washing them out of 

 the mud or sand in which they were placed. This of course requires 

 great care in the case of the smaller species.^^ 



Feeding. — While most authors give earthworms as food to the larger 

 larvae, Neave advises the use of immature larvae of muscid flies, 

 collected from the carcasses of rats, etc., trapped for the purpose. 

 These larvas buried themselves at once in the mud, where they were 

 apparently consumed by the tabanid larvae, which thrived under these 

 conditions. The larger species also greedily attacked the freshly 

 killed bodies of small tadpoles, mollusks, and bits of fish, placed on the 

 surface of the mud, though they were seldom actually seen to do 

 this unless examined at night. It was found in most cases that the 

 tabanid larvae did best in mud or sand, this point being usually de- 

 cided by the conditions under which they had been found, which was 

 very wet, but without standing water on the surface. 



Transportation. — If it is necessary to transport for any distance 

 larvas which have not reached the resting stage, it is important that 

 the jars, etc., in which they are placed should contain only wet mud 

 or sand and that there should be no standing water on the surface. 

 Some of Neave' s earhest captures, which had to be transported 50 

 or 60 miles from the Shire River to Mlanje, were nearly all lost from 

 this cause, the larvas being apparently drowned by the movements 

 of the water on the surface. 



Treatment of Pupal Stages. — ^Neave found that the soil in which the 

 pupae are kept should be considerably drier than that which suits 

 the larvae. 



Patton and Cragg have proposed to remove the fresh pupae from 

 the vessels in which the larvae are kept and to place them vertically 



'^ For rearing tabanid larvae in test-tubes, see Marchand, /. Econ. Entomol., 

 1917, X, 469-72. 



