BY 



EDW. JACOBSON (Semarang). 



In June 1908 1 shot at Bekassi, a village near Batavia 

 an Enckhla cijanura Bodd, When I took the bird up a small 

 Hippoboscid fly escaped from between its feathers and settled 

 down on a plant near to me. I succeeded in capturing the 

 insect and it was duly transferred to the cyanid bottle. 



On examining it at home under the lens T discovered a 

 Mallophagon clasped between the legs of the (dead) fly. This 

 aroused my interest and I tried at once to learn from a 

 dipterologist in Europe, whether this occurence had to be 

 considered as merely accidental or not, my first idea having 

 been, that the bird-fly preyed upon the bird-lices ; I could 

 not obtain however a satisfactory explanation, till I read one 

 of these days in the Cambridge Natural History i) the follow- 

 ing account : 



»Possibly Mallophaga may be transferred from one bird to 

 »another by means of the parasitic two-winged flies that infest 

 »birds. The writer has recorded (Proc. Ent. Soc. London 1890 

 »p. XXX) a case in which a specimen of these bird-flies 

 Ï captured on the wing was found to have some Mallophaga 

 »attached to it«. 



') The Cambridge Natural Histury, Vol V. Insects by David Sharp. Part I p. 350. 



