I'm staying in Murchison, West Coast, South Island of New Zealand. This morning I was talking to an old bloke and complaining about the sand flies, which have to be seen to be believed. He tells me this story :-

"Back in the forties I'm staying in an army camp near Lake Rotoiti, just over that range. One night my cobber and I are asleep in our tent, I wake up and hear a quiet buzzing noise.

By the dim light I see two sandflies hovering overhead, looking down at us. The smaller of the two sandflies says to his mate "what do you reckon, should we eat them here or take them back to base?"

The bigger obviously wiser sandfly says, "we'll eat 'em here mate, if we take them back to base those other big buggers will just steal them off us"."