2 



and the fourth and fifth veins.are forked. The majority of the blood- 

 sucking species belong to the genera Culicoides, Latr. (see below), 

 and Johannseniella, Will. (syn. Ceratolophus, Kieffer, nom. preocc.), 

 in which the blood-sucking habit is apparently universal in the 

 female sex. In addition to these two genera, both of which 

 are widely distributed and fairly numerous in species, a few 

 others, each consisting of one or two blood-sucking species, have 

 been described from Europe and North and South America. 

 The genus Johannseniella differs from Culicoides in the absence of 

 an empodium (median appendage) on the last joint of the tarsi, 

 and in the wings being usually bare ; the larvae are probably aquatic. 

 Up to the present time only four blood-sucking species of 

 Ceratopogoninae (Johannseniella imparunguis, Becker, which occurs 

 in Egypt, and the three species of Culicoides figured on Plate I.) 

 have been recorded from Africa,* but this total is probably a mere 

 fraction of the number of species actually existing in the Ethiopian 

 Region. It is much to be wished that collectors of blood-sucking 

 flies would turn their attention to the Midges, but in the case of 

 insects so delicate and fragile, in which the characters available 

 for the distinction of genera and species are necessarily minute, 

 it is impossible to insist too strongly that unless specimens be collected, 

 preserved, and transmitted to England with the utmost care, they will 

 be useless for purposes of determination and description. Tiny flies 

 such as these, if sent home dry without being pinned, cannot 

 subsequently be satisfactorily relaxed for pinning, apart from the 

 fact that they become hopelessly injured by being shaken about 

 loose in a glass tube or chip-box ; while to place them in contact 

 with cotton-wool is far worse. As the result of his experience in 

 Ashanti, Dr. W. M. Graham states that Midges are best caught in 

 glass tubes, when settled and sucking on a bare arm, by inverting 

 a tube over the insect, and, when the latter is safely inside, slipping 

 a sheet of paper underneath, thus closing the mouth of the tube. 



* So far as the faulty condition of the type renders it possible to judge, Ceratopogon 

 castaneus, Walk. (List of the Specimens of Dipterous Insects in the Collection of 

 the British Museum, Part I., p. 26 (1848). Sierra Leone) belongs to the genus 

 Ceratopogon, Mg., in its restricted sense, and to the sub-genus Forcipomyia, Mg. ; 

 it is therefore in all probability not a blood-sucker. 



