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NOTES ON AFRICAN BLOOD-SUCKING MIDGES (FAMILY 

 CHIRONOMIDAE, SUBFAMILY CERATOPOGONINAE), 

 WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW SPECIES. 



By Ernest E. Austen. 



Plate I. 



{Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 



Genus Culicoides, Latr. 



Culicoides grahamii, Austen. 



Culicoides grahamii, Austen, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 8, Vol. iii, March, 



1909, p. 280; 'Illustrations of African Blood-Sucking Flies,' p. 7, PI. I, 



fig. 3 (1909). 

 Culicoides habereri, Becker, Jahreshefte des Vereins fur vaterland. Naturkunde 



in Wiirttemberg, Jahrg., 1909, p. 289, Taf. viii, ix (1909). 

 The identity of Culicoides habereri, Becker, with C. grahamii, Austen, is con- 

 clusively established as the result of a comparison of the typical series of the 

 former with the type and para-types of the latter, which are preserved in 

 the British Museum (Natural History). For the opportunity of making this 

 comparison and thus proving the synonymy given above, the present writer is 

 indebted to Dr. Kurt Lampert, of the Konigl. Naturaliensammlung, Stuttgart, 

 where the original material of C. habereri is preserved ; with the most obliging 

 courtesy Dr. Lampert not only forwarded for comparison the typical series 

 described by Becker, but also presented three para-types of C. habereri to our 

 National Collection. 



So far as may be judged from the few observations on African Blood-Sucking 

 Midges at present recorded or otherwise available, Culicoides grahamii would 

 appear to be the commonest, most widely distributed, and most troublesome of 

 these minute but bloodthirsty insects yet described from Tropical Africa. Notes 

 on the behaviour of the species in Ashanti, the Congo Free State, and Uganda 

 were given by the author in his ' Illustrations of African Blood-Sucking Flies ' 

 (pp. 7-8). The specimens described by Becker as Culicoides habereri were taken 

 by Dr. Haberer in February, 1908, during the dry season, in Southern 

 Cameroon, on the Sanaga River, near Abunamballa (Nachtigalschnellen), and on 

 the M'Bam River, which is a tributary of the former stream. The following is 

 a translation of Dr. Haberer's remarks on the species, as quoted by Becker (loc. 

 cit.) : — " On the shore and on the sandbanks this tiny Dipteron is especially 

 troublesome to bathers, since in biting it displays a partiality for the wet body, 

 although in order to suck blood it will also creep under clothes. The bite is 

 unusually painful, and produces to begin with a little red spot (petechia) on the 

 skin. The midges which have sucked their fill swell up to an extraordinary 

 degree, as do the Sand-flies (Simuliidae). In a few hours the bitten spot itches 

 intensely, and is also considerably swollen ; only after the lapse of three days 

 does the inflammation begin to subside and the swelling to disappear. Since the 

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