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THE VICTORIA NYANZA 
33 
These winged clouds are known to entomologists as 
dancing-swarms.” On any warm summer evening 
in England dancing-swarms of gnats may be seen over 
pools, ponds, or water-butts containing stagnant water. 
The eggs of the mosquito are hatched in warm water, and 
the larval and pupal stages are passed in this medium. 
When the pupse are ready to hatch they rise to the 
surface, emerge from the pupa-cases, dry their wings and 
fly away. In order to produce such enormous clouds 
of gnats the water of the lake must contain myriads of 
larvae. The natives around the lake catch these gnats 
by means of grease and make them up into an oily kind 
of cake and eat them. Among the natives living around 
Lake Nyasa this preparation is known as “ Kungu 
cake.” Kungu means ‘‘ mist,” which the dense flights 
of these midges resemble. 
A description of the Kungu fly by the Rev. 
A. E. Eaton is given in the appendix to Elton’s 
Journals (1879). It is identified as a gnat. He also 
states that similar immense swarms of gnats have 
appeared in England, and have been mistaken at a 
distance for columns of smoke. 
In Egypt dense flocks of pigeons in the distance 
are often mistaken for clouds. This is also true of 
locusts, dust, sand, and smoke. 
A description of the Victoria Nyanza would be in¬ 
complete without some consideration of a remarkable 
animal, the Marsh-buck ; a bird, the Jacana, or Lily- 
trotter ; the Mud or Lung fish {Lepidosiren), and the 
most beautiful of all rushes, the Papyrus. 
The first is the animal known as Speke’s antelope, 
in honour of the distinguished traveller who discovered 
it on his second journey to find the source of the Nile 
(1863). The buck has horns spirally twisted, but they 
are absent in the female. Its hoofs are greatly elongated 
and adapted to enable the animal to walk on the sub¬ 
merged reeds and mud of the swamps in which it lives. 
The skin which covers the back of the pastern is hairless, 
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