78 GL. VENTRICOSA = GL. PALPALIS. 



Glossina ventricosa, Bigot, proves on examination of the typical 

 specimens, which, as already stated, are both females, to be 

 nothing but GL palpalis with the abdomen enormously distended 

 with coagulated blood. One of Sir John Kirk's specimens of 

 Gl. palpalis from the Zambesi has the abdomen similarly distended, 

 though to a smaller extent, and one of Dr. Button's examples of 

 var. tachinoides from the Gambia also has the abdomen full of 

 blood ; a male Glossina longipennis, Corti, from Somaliland, 

 belonging to the Museum collection, likewise has the abdomen 

 swollen and distorted owing to contained blood. According to 

 Bigot's statement (loc. cit. p. 121), he discovered the specimens 

 described by him as Gl. ventricosa among a number of Diptera 

 from Australia, which he had acquired a few years before the date 

 of his paper (1885). In consequence of this Bigot gave the 

 locality of his specimens as " Australie?" {loc. cit. p. 123), having 

 previously (p. 121) stated that it was improbable that there had 

 been any confusion as to their origin, and having drawn attention 

 to the interest attaching thereto, since no representative of the 

 genus had been met with outside Africa. Nevertheless there can 

 be no doubt that confusion had taken place here. As is well 

 known, the late M. Bigot was in the habit of removing the original 

 labels from the specimens he acquired, and copying the data as to 

 the locality on to the label bearing the specific name, which he 

 pinned into the box containing them. Thus Bigot may well 

 have removed the labels from these specimens, and then have 

 put them down inadvertently among the Australian Diptera and 

 foi'gotten them. Be this as it may, Glossina ventricosa, Bigot, is 

 absolutely identical with Gl. palpalis, Rob.-Desv., and there is 

 no evidence whatever that Glossina occurs outside Africa.* 



* It is tvvie that it had been previously suggested by Van der Wulp 

 (Tijdschrift voor Eutomologie, XXVII. (1884), p. 150), that the " Mouche 

 charbonneuse " of New Caledonia was " probably a species oi Glossina,'' 

 but the suggestion is superfluous, since, given the presence of anthrax 

 among cattle in the vicinity and an abraded surface of human skin, any 

 carrion-haunting Muscid might quite possibly, as is the opinion of Macleay, 

 produce the results (deaths from malignant pustule) supposed to be due to 

 the bite of a particular fly in New Caledonia. See "Note on a Reputed 

 Poisonous Fly of New Caledonia", by William Macleay, F.L.S., etc., 

 Proc. Linn. Soc, New South Wales, Vol. VII. (1883), pp. 202-205. A fly 

 caught in the act of biting by Mr. E. L. Layard, C.M.G., H.B.M. Consul, 

 New Caledonia, and at first supposed to be the dreaded " Mouche char- 

 bonneuse," was determined by Macleay to be "a ,Stamoxys, an insect not 

 uncommon in this country [Australia], and very probably intrcduced, as 

 Mr. Layard suggests, into New Caledonia and the Isle of Pines from 

 Australia, as the maggot of the fly lives in horse-dung" {cf. Macleay, 

 loc. cit. pp. 201-205). ' ■ 



