vi. Introduction. 



sucking Flies arranged under countries. In many cases these lists 

 are obviously of the most fragmentary description, owing to the 

 small amount of material at present available for examination, but 

 it is hoped that this chapter will enable a reader who is interested 

 in a particular Colony or Protectorate to see at a glance what 

 species are known to occur there. The lists will also serve as a basis 

 for future work, and may help to suggest possible disseminators in 

 the event of the outbreak of an epidemic or epizootic which may be 

 thought to be due to Blood-sucking Flies. It must be clearly under- 

 stood that the omission of the name of any given species from a 

 particular list in no way implies that the species does not occur 

 in the country in question, but simply that up to the present time 

 no specimens of it have been received therefrom by the Museum, or 

 that its occurrence has not been recorded. It may be added that 

 no collections or specimens of Diptera have yet reached the Museum 

 from Dahomey, or from German South- West Africa. 



The Blood-Sucking Flies of Africa belong to the same families as 

 those found elsewhere, but certain genera of Tabanidae (as also the 

 Tsetse-Flies genus Glossina) are confined to the Ethiopian Region, 

 at least at the present day. Representatives of all these families 

 (with the exception of the Culicidae, or Mosquitoes) are figured on 

 the thirteen plates at the end of the volume, which provide 

 illustrations of one hundred and two species. The v.ast majority of 

 blood-sucking flies belong to the Tabanidae, and although no fewer 

 than eighty-six of the species illustrated in this book are members 

 of this family, those represented are less than one-third of the total 

 number of African species of Tabanidse already known ; in the case 

 of the remaining families a much larger proportion of the known 

 African blood-sucking species is represented in the plates. 



In the first seven chapters, an attempt has been made to supply 

 the fullest possible information as to the bionomics of the families, 

 sub-families, genera, and species mentioned ; as will be seen, how- 

 ever, in the case of many of the species the data at present available 

 are limited to a record of localities and dates. The all-important 



