Blood-Sucking Flies other than Mosquitoes. 259 
Suddenly there was a sharp prick on the back of one of my hands. Turning 
round the hand I was not much surprised at discovering that the grey-striped fly 
was the offender. Knowing now what I had to deal with I attempted to kill it 
by a slap, but the blood-thirsty knave was remarkably agile and easily 
escaped, alighting again on the grass, where I let it alone. It soon stabbed 
me afresh, and I made a second attempt to take its life. Again it escaped, 
alighting on the grass as before. I now tried to catch it by a sweep of my 
hand, but did not succeed. These repeated attempts on its life proved too 
much for it. It flew off altogether, and never worried me again. 
On every sugar estate I have yet visited I have observed this fly attacking the 
mules. It is much more abundant on some estates than on others. Its larve 
live in dung, and accordingly this pest could be considerably reduced on 
estates by dog away with dung heaps or by treating them in such a way that 
the flies would not be able to have access to them to deposit eggs. 
The fly once in a way enters houses. Quite recently I took one on a win- 
dow-pane of the house in which I reside. 
Stomoxys calcitrans is interesting not only because it is one of the Muscids 
which suck blood, but because also it is a close ally of another blood-sucking 
Museid, the famous tsetse fly of Africa. 
The last blood-sucking family I shall mention is that of the Hippoboscida, 
horse-flies or forest-flies, but the only member of the family | shall notice is one 
which I take to be Hzppobosca equina, the English forest-fly, so-called because, 
as stated by Austen, the principal home of this species in the British Islands 1s 
the New Forest in Hampshire. Regarding the distribution of the fly Austen 
Says it occurs throughout Europe and in very many other widely distant 
localities, to some of which, at any rate, ithas doubtless been carried with 
horses inrecent years. He furthermore mentions that the British Museum 
has received specimens from Algeria, the Cape of Good Hope, Madeira, 
Canary Islands, Azores, Turkeyin Asia, Bengal, Upper Burma, Calebes, Fiji, 
and New Caledonia. 
I have now and then seen the fly on horses, but cannot say whether or not it 
be abundant in the colony, as I have not investigated it. I have twice observed 
one blunder into the Museum. In each instance it had doubtless come from a 
horse at the cab-stand in front of the building. The fly itself is flat, and has its 
feet furnished with toothed-claws which enable it to cling so tightly to the hair 
of an animal that it cannot be dislodged by a brush from the tail. Its move- 
ments are rapid and almost crab-like. 
