162 ,JAS. J. SIMPSON — ENTOMOLOGICAL 



situation which could have been selected. I shall return to this question later, 

 but in the meantime, I should like to recapitulate what information I could 

 gather from the owners of the various horses seen. 



At the town of Pettifu there were two horses, one mare and one stallion, 

 which had been brought from French Guinea about four months before. They 

 both showed typical signs of trypanosomiasis, e.g., considerable oedema of 

 stomach, legs and scrotum ; but I was unable to discover whether these symptoms 

 had developed prior or subsequent to their importation into Sierra Leone. A 

 mare at Laminaia also showed signs of trypanosomiasis, and trypanosomes were 

 found in its blood. On the other hand, one horse which had been in Bassia for 

 over four years looked perfectly normal and healthy, and no history of swelling 

 or sickness could be elicited from the owner, avIio rode it frequently. At 

 Kukuna there were two horses ; one had been there for about a year and seemed 

 quite sound, the other presented very marked symptoms of trypanosomiasis, but 

 the owner assured me that it had been six years in Kukuna and had never been 

 what he called " sick," although it had always shown the same amount of oedema. 



The subject is therefore well worth further investigation. Game is abundant 

 in this region, and an examination of the blood of the various types, together 

 with a systematic study of the different blood-sucking insects which are to be 

 found there, might lead to very definite results. It is more than probable that 

 the only species of tsetse in this district are Glossina palpalis and G. longipalpis. 



Soon after leaving Yana, one enters the valley of the Little Skarsies, or the 

 Kabba, the name by which it is known in this region. The country is very 

 mountainous, and as the majority of the towns are situated either on the side or 

 the top of lofty hills, trekking is very arduous — up one side of a hill some 900 

 feet and down the other. The sides of the hills and valleys are densely clad with 

 heavy forest, but in most cases the tops of the hills are covered with grass and 

 thin scrub. The sides of the hills are intersected by deep ravines which carry 

 torrential streams in the wet season. 



While the writer was crossing the River Lolo, a tributary of the Kabba, which 

 in the dry season is merely a trickling stream with numerous small pools, 

 Stegomyia fasciata was caught, along with Tabanus kingsleyi, while nearer 

 Kondita the same species of Tabanus and also Tabanus besti were found. At 

 the town of Kondita itself, at least one other species of Tabanus, not yet identi- 

 fied, was troublesome, and it is interesting to note that males of this species were 

 obtained — a very rare occurrence. On the banks of the River Kabba, between 

 Kondita and Kamagbonse, Glossina palpalis occurs. At Kamagbonse cattle, 

 sheep and goats seem to thrive well. 



The road from Kamagbonse to Kamba climbs steeply through thick bush and 

 cane brakes to a height of 1,150 feet, when the country opens out into thin bush 

 and scrub. About 2 miles from Kamagbonse Glossina longipalpis was captured. 

 Kamba is the principal town of the western kingdom of the Yallunkas ; it is well 

 situated in an open clearing on the top of a large circular hill, and is extremely 

 clean. The water supply is at the foot of the hill, and in the valley in which 

 the stream runs the following blood-sucking insects were found -.— Glossina 

 longipalpis, Tabanus sp., T. kingsleyi, T. quadrisignatus, and one species of Haeina- 

 topotu near cordigera. 



