126 



takes longer. A considerable amount of moisture is evidently required 

 to induce oviposition in captivity. Owing to the occurrence of fungi, 

 accurate counts of the eggs could not be made, but so far as it was 

 possible to judge, the largest number was laid in plain earth or earth 

 and lizard faeces. At least nine da3's were required for the eggs to 

 hatch. Excess of moisture for a limited time has no effect on the 

 viability of the eggs ; they hatched after being immersed for a day, 

 but drying even for a short time is fatal. Larvae of the first instar 

 can also survive excess of moisture for some time, but are extremely 

 sensitive to thorough drying and shrivel if exposed for a few hours in 

 the shade. They begin to feed as soon as the head has darkened, i.e. 

 the mandibles hardened, and select when feeding on lizard faeces the 

 chitinous fragments mixed with partly digested fibre. They will also 

 feed on the dead bodies of the parent flies and on the younger larvae. 



Finely ground mixed blood and earth proved a satisfactory food 

 substitute. The first eggs hatched on the 20th September. The slow 

 growth of the larvae from the late September eggs suggests that in 

 Macedonia there may be one brood less than in India, and that the 

 wintering brood begins at least a month earlier. That the September 

 brood hibernates has been subsequently confirmed. Once the critical 

 stages of hatching and the first instar have been passed the larvae 

 apparently possess unexpected powers of resisting dessication, which 

 must be of considerable help to the species in its natural breeding 

 haunts, where the conditions as regards moisture are variable. 



Of the various preventive measures discussed nets have proved 

 successful, but all bedding should be thoroughly shaken or beaten 

 before the net is adjusted for the night. Ordinary paraffin, if liberally 

 applied, will keep the flies off. Suggestions for the treatment of tents 

 and marquees include the levelling of the floor and the filling in of all 

 cracks with a mi.xture of cresol and sand or sawdust. The floor should 

 be liberally watered with a strong solution of cresol, and, if possible, 

 covered with a ground sheet. According to the severity of the plague 

 the tent should be periodically closed and sprayed with a solution of 

 formalin or fumigated with cresol. A one per cent, formalin solution has 

 been recommended, but the author considers this too weak. In corru- 

 gated iron huts formalin may be replaced by a one per cent, mixture of 

 cresol in paraffin emulsion. All cracks round a tent for a distance of 

 two feet from it should be filled in and the soil sprinkled with cresol. 

 A warning is given against various camp practices likely to further the 

 breeding of the species. Suspected breeding-sites should be sprinkled 

 with cresol 10 to 14 days after the disappearance of the successive 

 waves of sand-flies that occur from June to September. 



Bi.ACKLocK (B.) & Adler (S.). a Parasite resembling Plasmodium 

 falciparum in a Chimpanzee. — Ann. Trop. Med. & Parasit., 

 Liverpool, xvi, no. 1, 31st March 1922, pp. 99-106, 1 plate. 



A blood parasite morphologically indistinguishable from Plasmodium 

 Praecox {falcipanim) has been isolated from a chimpanzee at Freetown, 

 Sierra Leone. Attempts to infect Anopheles costalis by allowing 

 individuals bred in the laboratory to feed on the animal on two suc- 

 cessive nights failed. Experiments with injections, either subcutaneous 

 or intravenous, of infected blood into man also proved negative. 



So far these experiments do not confirm Reich enow's conclusion that 

 the chimpanzee may be a reservoir of P. praecox, and therefore a 

 source of danger to Europeans in West Africa [R. A.E., B, ix, 129]. 



