68 



LL. LLOYD. 



with fly areas in which game is namerous and httle disturbed. Table I. has been 

 constructed to illustrate this point. In it are compared the catches made by fly boys 

 in three areas, in two of which, Nawalia and Ngoa, game is very plentiful, while in 

 the third, Kashitu, it is much less so. The periods do not correspond, but this does 

 not affect the figures to any great extent. The numbers caught and the proportion 

 of the sexes varies more from day to day than over long periods at different seasons 

 of the year. It will be seen that at Kashitu female flies were three times as easy to 

 obtain as at Nawalia, and twice as easy as at Ngoa, while males were twice as easily 

 obtained at Nawalia as at Kashitu. The percentage of females in the total catch is 

 three times as great at Kashitu as at Nawalia. Occasionally the females in a day's 

 catch at Kashitu were slightly in excess of the males. The number of male flies caught 

 is more indicative of the amount of fly in an area than is the number of female flies, 

 since the males follow moving animals whether hungry or not, in search of mates. 



Table I. 

 Comparing the Catches of Fly in relation to the Amount of Game in an Area. 



The pupa collecting also shows that the fly is less numerous than it appears to be 

 in the areas where game is scanty. Table II. shows the relative frequency with which 

 pupae are found in two of the areas considered above and at Chutika, another locality 

 where game is numerous. Empty puparia are included with the pupae to make 

 the figures more representative by obviating the influence of the seasons in which 

 the searches were made, so far as possible. This makes the proportion at Chutika 

 lower than it should be, because the breeding places there were mainly positions that 

 would be submerged during the rains, the puparia being washed away. Ngoa and 

 Kashitu may be quite fairly compared, since the conditions in the two districts are 

 the same. It w^ill be seen that a native in a day's work was able to obtain four times 

 as many at Ngoa as at Kashitu. The restlessness of the game may account for this 

 to some extent, but it is obvious that the pupae, and therefore the flies, are fewer 

 in the area where the game is less plentiful. In each case the country covered was 

 about five miles in each direction from the central camp, and the same five natives 

 have been employed throughout. They were already thoroughly experienced before 

 working the Kashitu area. 



