50 THOMPSON YATES AND JOHNSTON LABORATORIES REPORT 
no doubt that these maggots feed only at night. Mr. Bentley told us that as many 
as fifty could sometimes be found beneath a single mattress, and that he had known 
boys to be so pestered by them that they had preferred to sit all night outside a 
house to sleeping within it. 
In one village, Nzungu, we visited a hut, measuring eight feet by ten feet, in 
which seven boys were sleeping on a small mat, and in the dust beneath a bed- 
platform on which slept a man and a woman. In the corner of the hut was the 
usual small fire and a sleeping pye-dog. Although we did not see the maggots 
actually feeding, we collected from beneath the mats and from amongst the boys' legs 
some half-dozen which were filled with recently sucked blood. The natives said that 
the maggots dropped off" at once if the limb on which they were feeding was moved. 
There were specimens of all sizes, ranging in length from 2 to I 5 mm. amongst those 
brought to us, and so far we have obtained them in every village we have visited. 
When ready to pupate, the larva lies dormant upon the surface, changes in colour to 
a pinky-brown, and later becomes a dark-reddish or brownish-black, chitinous, 
segmented, and oblong puparium. 
We have never been able to substantiate the assertion, made to us on several 
occasions, that the maggot is able to jump to a height of eighteen inches. We think 
it more probable that they reach the raised beds by crawling up either the supports 
or the grass wall against which the bed is usually placed. We have, however, satisfied 
ourselves that it feeds mainly or entirely at night, and that it probably feeds nightly 
since blood in varying stages of digestion, and ranging in colour from bright red to 
black, can often be seen in its alimentary canal. 
The distribution of this larva seems to be very extensive. We have collected it 
all over the Lutete and surrounding districts, and at Leopoldville. We have heard 
of it as being common at San Salvador, in Portuguese territory, on the Congo at 
Matadi in the cataract region, and at Tchumbiri one hundred and fifty miles above 
Stanley Pool. 
Some of the native names for the maggot are as follows : — 
At Tchumbiri, north of Leopoldville, the Bateke, according to Mrs. E. 
Billington of the Royal British Nurses' Association, call it ' Mabinzu.' At 
Leopoldville the Bateke call it 'Nchichi.' At Wathen (Lutete), in the cataract 
region, Mr. Bentley states that all maggots are called ' Ntunga,' and that there was 
no other special name for this one. At Matadi the native name is probably ' Mvidi.' 
In the Bangala district it is called ' Kiso.' 
This larva maggot is semitranslucent, of a dirty white colour, acephalous, and 
amphipneustic. It resembles, when adult, the larvae of the bot-flies, and consists of 
eleven very distinct segments. The first or anterior one is divisible, by a slight 
constriction, into two portions, the foremost of which is small, bears the mouth parts, 
and is capable of protrusion and retraction to a considerable extent. 
