28 



According to Mr. M. T. Dawe, of the Scientific and Forestry 

 Department, Entebbe, the native name of Simulium damnosum 

 in Uganda is mbwa. When sending a tube full of specimens of this 

 species for identification, Mr. Dawe wrote, on November 17th, 

 1904 : " This small biting fly is known to the natives as mbwa. 

 Its bite is very poisonous and irritable, and causes large swellings, 

 which usually end in sores. Localities where this fly is present are 

 very sparsely inhabited." Mr. Charles White, of Bukalamu, 

 Uganda, writing to the Wellcome Research Laboratories at the 

 Gordon Memorial College, Khartoum, remarks with reference to 

 S. damnosum : " We have in these parts, near the Ripon Falls, 

 a terrible pest, far worse than mosquitoes a small black biting fly, 

 which sucks the blood and leaves a painful irritation and sore. 

 Natives have to bind their legs with bark-cloth puttees, and some 

 of their bodies and legs are covered with sores which they tell me 

 are caused by this fly. . . . These flies are in millions here, and 

 consequently cattle will not thrive."* According to Roubaud,f 

 at Brazzaville, French Congo, where its native name is " Fourou," 

 S. damnosum is extremely abundant at certain seasons, and at the 

 time of his arrival was literally in swarms round the legs of natives 

 suffering from sleeping sickness. " The larvae and pupae," writes 

 this author, " are to be found in the rapid streams that empty 

 themselves into Stanley Pool. They are attached to aquatic plants, 

 and are generally concealed under the ferruginous deposit adhering 

 thereto." Roubaud was not able to determine the duration of the 

 life-cycle, but is inclined to think that it must be somewhat 

 protracted. At Abu Hamed, in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, on the 

 River Nile, according to Dr. Andrew Balfour,t Simulium damnosum 

 is " at times ... a veritable terror." Dr. Balfour adds : " It 

 is known as the ' Kunteb ' and bites fiercely, though, fortunately, 



* Quoted by H. H. King in " Third Report of the Wellcome Research Laboratories 

 at the Gordon Memorial College, Khartoum " (London : Bailliere, Tindall & Cox, 1908 

 [February, 1909J), p. 209. 



f Cf. E. Roubaud's two papers quoted above. 



J " Second Report of the Wellcome Research Laboratories at the Gordon Memorial 

 College, Khartoum " (Khartoum : Department of Education, Sudan Government, 

 1906), p. 34. 



King (loc. cit.) writes this word " Kilteb ; " see below. E. E. A. 



