179 
CURRENT NOTES. 
Stegomyia fasciata in North-Hast Africa. 
As a result of the publication of the late Sir Rubert Boyce’s article (Bull. Ent. 
Res. I., p. 233) on the significance of this mosquito in West Africa, Dr. Andrew 
Balfour, Director of the Wellcome Research Laboratories, Khartoum, has written 
drawing attention to the fact that the species occurs in various localities in the 
Sudan. At one time it was fairly numerous in Khartoum itself, but such relentless 
war has been waged against it during the past seven years that it is now rarely 
found. Dr. Balfour adds that “ there is some evidence to show that S. fasciata 
may transmit the virus of horse-sickness in the Sudan ; while recent French work 
tends to confirm the supposition that it may also act as a vector in dengue fever, 
Indeed it wouid seem that there is a close connection between this mosquito and 
certain of the ultra-visible viruses producing disease in man and animals,” 
Mr. R. E. Drake-Brockman has also written from British Somaliland to say 
that S. fasciata is very abundant in all the coast towns of that country, except 
from April to September, when hardly any mosquitos are to be found owing to 
the terrific heat and the strong hot winds. He had not met with the species 
anywhere up-country, and considers it to be essentially a town mosquito, breeding 
in the water-vessels in and about every Arab and Indian house ; no larve, how- 
ever, could be found in any of the wells. Attempts have been made to control the 
breeding of the insects, but it has been found difficult to induce the native popu- 
lation to take the proper precautions, Numerous specimens, bred from larve, 
have been sent home by Mr. Drake-Brockman, which show some interesting 
variations, the thorax being sometimes quite pale brown, while the dorsum of the 
abdomen is often so much suffused with whitish scales as to obliterate the con- 
spicuous white banding. <A single specimen with a similar whitish abdomen has 
been taken by Mr. J. J. Simpson, at Lokoja, Northern Nigeria. 
Cimex rotundatus in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. 
Dr. Andrew Balfour writes as follows concerning this bed-bug :—* Hitherto 
Cimex votundatus, the species of bed-bug which Patton has associated with kala- 
azar has only been found in the Red Sea Province of the Sudan where it was 
believed to have been introduced from Arabia by Yemenese. Recently, however, 
the late Lado Knclave has been taken over from the Belgians and now forms 
part of the Mongalla Province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. From one of its 
stations, Loka by name, Hl-Kaimakam Percival Bey kindly brought me 
specimens of bed-bugs collected in the native huts, where he informs me there 
are large quantities of them. On examining his specimens I found them to be 
Cimex rotundatus and not C. lectularius, which, so far as is known, is the only 
species found in Khartoum and in the kala-azar districts of Sennar, Kassala and 
Kordofan. 
“As Captain Archibald is at present in the Lado District on Sleeping Sick- 
ness work, I have wired him to be on the look out for cases of kala-azar, while as 
Mr, King, our Entomologist, is also in that region we are likely to obtain full 
