1977] 
Lest on — Paussids in West Africa 
213 
Table 1. Days of sampling and numbers sampled to give an additional species. 
Sampling 
day 
Cumulative 
total sampled 
Species 
added 
Total 
species 
1 
0 
0 
0 
4 
1 
1 
1 
7 
4 
2 
3 
44 
52 
1 
4 
47 
56 
1 
5 
116 
220 
1 
6 
400 
1063 
0 
6 
the value of would have been even larger). We can therefore 
analyse the total paussids with some confidence as reflecting the 
trends in each. 
It is usual in tropical phenology to attempt to tie phenomena to 
the rainfall pattern (Karr, 1976). The major peak (Fig. 3) occurred 
in April-May, when the rains were building up to their maximum, 
but the minor peak of January-February occurred in the dry period 
when the rains, although increasing, did not reach the effective 
level, lOcms/ month. The August trough coincided with the so- 
called “little dry season” but no simple correlation of paussid fre- 
quency with rainfall amounts was detected. 
Table 1 gives the arrival day and cumulative total for the capture 
of the i th species. 
Discussion 
It is likely the six species trapped represented all of the group 
present in the locality; extrapolation from the figures of Table 1 
suggests an additional species should have been found, if present, 
before the 1000th individual was trapped. 
The lognormal species distribution parallels that found in sam- 
ples from Ghana of birds, ants, snakes and several other taxa 
(Leston, 1972): no explanation is offered here (but see Williams, 
1964). 
Paussids are emerging throughout the year but with marked 
fluctuations in frequency. The four most frequent species show 
parallel trends in their respective frequencies, indicative of the 
same set of factors influencing all. The peak corresponds closely 
