[The following are some papers dealing with this subject: Proc. Ent. Soc., London, for year 1907, p. xlvii; Journ. R.A.M.C., 1908, pp. 5–11, figs. 1 and 2, by Austen; Journ. R.A.M.C., 1908, pp. 1 and 2, by Major F. Smith; Trans. Soc. Trop. Med. and Hyg., 1910, iii, pp. 223–225, by Austen.—F. V. T.]
Lund’s Larva.
Fig. 411.—Lund’s larva: on the left, the whole larva, magnified six times. On the right, the head end, much enlarged. (After Gedoelst.)
Endemic in the region of the Congo State; called after Commander Lund, from the skin of whose arm it was extracted; 12·5 mm. long, 4·5 mm. broad; colour yellowish, with brown rings, on account of the division of the brown spines; head cone-shaped, with two hemispherical smooth antennæ, two thick black mouth hooks and wart-shaped bodies, between which are situate two to three longitudinal rows of dark brown chitinous laminæ. The body segments are covered over their whole surface with irregularly distributed triangular yellow spines, the points of which are coloured dark brown. Its size increases from the second to the sixth segment, diminishes from the seventh to the ninth, at the tenth it is reduced, and at the eleventh quite small. The posterior stigmata are bean-shaped, each with three markedly tortuous openings. Duration of the larval stage unknown; the same applies to the pupal and imago stages.
Auchmeromyia luteola, Fabricius.
[This fly, the parent of the so-called Congo floor maggot,[416] belongs to a nearly allied Muscid genus to Cordylobia, but which can at once be told by the great length of the second abdominal segment. The maggot occurs in numbers in the native huts in the Congo region and is fairly common in central and northern parts of Mozambique; it is also recorded from the Zambesi River and the vicinity of Barberton in the Eastern Transvaal (Bull. Ent. Res., 1912, iii, p. 216), in German East Africa, in Nyasaland, and British East Africa. It is also recorded from Bara, Kordofan,[417] where they occurred on the floor of the men’s prison and bit the prisoners. They were destroyed by sprinkling Jeyes’ fluid on the floor. Neave states (ibid., p. 310) that it occurs in the more neglected huts in native villages throughout tropical Africa, and frequently enters a tent when pitched near a village. It is also found in West Africa. The fly is thick-set and about the size and build of a bluebottle fly; length 10 to 12 mm.; tawny in colour to dirty yellowish-brown, with dusky hairs, giving it a smoky appearance; the flattened thorax has long dark stripes and the abdomen a dusky line in the centre of the second segment, which meets a dark line on its posterior border; the dusky third segment has a narrow yellowish anterior line; the fourth segment is also dusky; legs buff with black hairs; the fifth tarsal segment black. The larvæ are whitish, becoming reddish after a feast of blood, with much wrinkled skin and rather flat and broad. They live in crevices of the mud floor, under sleeping mats during the daytime, and come out at night and suck the blood of sleepers and then retire to shelter again. Dutton, Todd, and Christy noticed that where people slept on beds or platforms raised above the floor the maggots were not so numerous as under the sleeping mats laid on the ground. They turned up many of the maggots from a depth of three inches or more.[418]—F. V. T.]
Family. Oestridæ.
[The family of Oestridæ or warble flies are all parasitic in their larval stage, usually termed the “bot” stage. They are found as parasites in warm-blooded animals, and man is frequently attacked by them. The members of this family have the mouth rudimentary, many of them are hairy and bee-like, with large eyes and the head large, the lower part more or less swollen. The thorax is large with a distinct transverse suture, and the abdomen short and stumpy or very slightly elongated. The male genitalia are hidden, whilst the female ovipositor is often elongated. The wings may be transparent (Hypoderma) or mottled (Gastrophilus), and have muscid-like venation; the tegulæ usually large, the legs moderately long.