488 MEDICAL ENTOMOLOGY 



According to de Geer, Conorhinus rubrofasciatus is a true Oriental 

 species which has spread to other parts. Neiva, who has recently 

 studied all the known museum specimens, gives its 

 Geographical Distri- d { str ib u tion as follows : Brazil, chiefly in the towns 

 along the sea coast, such as Para, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, 

 and Santos ; Haiti ; Argentina ; Guyana Franceza and St. Thomas ; 

 China ; India in various localities ; Philippine Islands in various locali- 

 ties ; Madagascar ; Sierra Leone ; Mauritius ; Diego Suarez ; Zanzibar ; 

 Tanga ; Sumatra ; New Guinea ; Indo-China in various localities ; 

 Borneo ; Java ; Seychelles ; Ceylon ; Angola ; Singapore ; Japan and 

 Formosa. 



Distant gives its distribution as follows : Sylhet (Stockholm Museum) 

 Bor Ghat (Dixon), Bombay (Leith) ; Calcutta and Mysore (Indian 

 Museum); Ceylon (Green); Andaman Islands (Indian Museum); Toungoo, 

 Mandalay (Fea). Widely distributed throughout the Malay Peninsula and 

 Malayan Archipelago ; recorded from Madagascar ; West Africa (Distant 

 Collection) ; and generally found in the Southern Neartic and Northern 

 Neotropical Regions and in the Antilles. 



There appears to be some doubt as to whether Conorhinus rubrofas- 

 ciatus occurs in West Africa. Bagshawe, in the Sleeping Sickness 

 Bulletin, states that Mr. Guy Marshall, Director of the Imperial Bureau 

 of Entomology, has not so far received any specimens from the African 

 Continent. 



Neiva states that he was unable to find a single specimen in any of 

 the museums in the United States which he visited. Champion, in the 

 Biologia Centrali- Americana, Rhynchota, vol. ii., identified three speci- 

 mens from Mexico as rubrofasciatus, but he appears to have some doubt 

 as to the accuracy of the determination. Neiva considers the Mexican 

 forms represent a variety which he describes under the name mexicana 

 (see below). 



In Madras Conorhinus rubrofasciatus in its adult stage is a familiar 

 insect, as it frequently enters houses at nights ; the majority which do so 



are males. If the alimentary tracts of specimens caught 

 Bionomics and rela- ... ,. -n i r 



tion to disease m * ms wav are dissected out, they will be round to con- 

 tain partially digested mammalian blood, and the ques- 

 tion arises as to where this food is obtained. On one occasion the authors 

 found a dead female in a nest of the South Indian squirrel, Funambulus 

 palmarum, and the presumption is that rubrofasciatus feeds either on 

 this animal or on some other small mammal. The squirrel has the habit 

 of roosting in holes in the banyan tree in Madras, and it is possible that 



