27 



the Congo Free State, Southern Nigeria, and the Anglo-Egyptian 

 Sudan, while the species is recorded by Roubaud from French 

 Congo and French Guinea. The details as regards localities, etc., 

 of the specimens in the National Collection are as follows. 

 Uganda : Busoga, near Jinja, 1902 (type and one other specimen. 

 Dr. Cuthbert Christy) ; precise locality uncertain, November, 1904 

 (M. T. Dawe). Congo Free State : village near Leopoldville, 

 December 13th, 1903 (Drs. Dutton, Todd, and Christy). Southern 

 Nigeria : Cross River, 1906 (Dr. R. W. Gray, W.A.M.8.). Anglo- 

 Egyptian Sudan : Abu Hamed, 1905 (Colonel Talbot, per Dr. 

 Andrew Balfour), and March, 1908 (H. H. King)* 



With reference to Simulium damnosum in Uganda Dr. Christy 

 writes as follows : " In travelling through Busoga westward, one 

 passes abruptly, 3 or 4 miles from Jinja, on the Nile, into a ' belt ' of 

 this terrible pest, locally known as the ' Jinja fly.' This belt extends, 

 I believe, from the shores of the Victoria Nyanza about Lubwa's 

 in Busoga, northwards, along the right bank of the Nile, for 12 or 

 15 miles or more, and is perhaps 3 or 4 miles wide. In this area the 

 flies swarm at certain seasons in millions, and are such a plague 

 that, according to Dr. Hodges, the Medical Officer for Busoga, the 

 natives have to leave their shambas (plantations). I do not 

 remember to have seen the fly on the left bank of the Nile, and I 

 cannot recollect to have met with it in any other part of the 

 Protectorate. There is a patch of particularly dense forest within 

 the ' Jinja fly ' belt, where the flies are particularly numerous, . . . 

 The bite of this small fly is a very severe one, and causes a wheal 

 which itches intolerably, and is marked by a large drop of blood. 

 If many flies are allowed to bite and gorge themselves the part 

 streams with blood from the oozing of the punctures. On nearing 

 the sphere of influence of the ' Jinja fly ' each porter stops and 

 breaks off a leafy branch to use as a fly swish ; the whole of them 

 then collect into a bunch, and travel at increased speed. "f 



* Mr. King has kindly presented to the Museum a number of larvae and pupae 

 obtained by him at Abu Hamed. 



f Quoted by Theobald, Reports of the Sleeping Sickness Commission, No. III., p. 40 

 (1903). 



