Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2009
Since the cessation of the work of the Luangwa Sleeping Sickness Commission in Northern Rhodesia the investigation into the bionomics of Glossina morsitans has been carried on at Ngoa, in the Mpika Division, on the high ground of the Congo-Zambezi watershed. The work included a study of the influence of various bloods on the breeding capabilities of the fly and further investigation of the breeding habits and haunts of the insect in nature. The following notes embody the results of the work during the eight months from January to August, 1913. The climatic conditions during this period are given in Table 1, the temperatures being those of the laboratory.
* Cf. Kleine, Deutschen Medizinischen Wochenschrift, No. 45, 1909.
* Ann. Trop. Med. and Parasitology, vii, no. 2, p. 285.
* Minchin, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Vol. B76, p. 543; Roubaud, La Maladie du Sommeil, 1909, pp. 427–452.
* [Mr. F. W. Fiske has already pointed out (Bull. Ent. Res. iv, p. 103) that the results of laboratory experiments upon the food value of reptilian blood should be accepted with some reserve, as they are not borne out by field observations. Dr. H. L. Duke and Dr. G. D. H. Carpenter have noted that G. palpalis feeds freely on monitor lizards, under natural conditions on the islands in Lake Victoria, and as a result of his own recent observations in the same locality Mr. Fiske concludes that these lizards constitute the most favoured food of that fly.—ED.]
* Stevenson Hamilton, bull. Ent. Res., ii, pp. 113–118 (1911.)