Abstract
THE tsetse-flies (Glossina) continue to occupy the attention of entomologists working in tropical Africa. Dr. W. A. Lamborn has now published (Bull. Entom. Research, vii., part i) a third report of his investigations into the habits of these flies in Nyasa-land (see NATURE, vol. xcvii., p. 90). He believes that an abundance of the flies usually indicates the presence of “big game” in the neighbourhood; yet he doubts whether the destruction of game would be effective in reducing the numbers of the fly, because “the game, if severely harassed, will retire [to surrounding areas] during the dry season, when only it is possible to hunt, returning in the wet and probably bringing more flies with it.” In the same number “of the bulletin there is also a paper by LI. Lloyd on Glossina morsi-tans in northern Rhodesia. His observations show that in districts where game is scarce tsetses are often more numerous and troublesome than where game is plentiful; he suggests that this is because the flies, in the absence or scarcity of other mammalian prey, must attack man in larger numbers and with a more violent hunger. Mr. Lloyd, like Dr. Lamborn, finds males much more abundant vthan females in ordinary collections of Glossina, but Dr. Lamborn points out that the proportion of females is largely increased when flies are caught beneath an umbrella or resting on trees, approaching the equality with the males which is seen in flies reared from puparia. Both writers have interesting notes on species of Mutilla. (described by R. E. Turner in the same number of the bulletin), the larvaa of which are parasitic in the pupae of the tsetses, while Dr. Lamborn has shown that a small chalcid (Syntomosphyrum glossinae), believed also to be a parasite of the Glossina, is really a hyperparasite on the Mutilla.
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C., G. Recent Work on Tsetse-Flies . Nature 98, 157 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/098157a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/098157a0