NEWS .VOTES 79 



east, is also conveyed by a species of tsetse fly. In one year the deaths in 

 the region of Busoga reached a total of 20,000, and it is calculated that 

 although the disease was only noticed in Uganda for the first time in 1901, 

 by the middle of 1904, 100,000 people had been killed bv it. 



Finally, we come to a last class of diseases which is of the utmost inter- 

 est to the agriculturist and settler, and yet at present it is but little under- 

 stood. These diseases are caused by various species of a protozoon named 

 Piroplasma, and the diseases may collectively be spoken of as piroplasmosis. 

 When they are present in cattle they are spoken of in various parts of the 

 world as Texas fever, tick-fever, blackwater and redwater. Heartwater in 

 sheep is a form of piroplasmosis. Horses also suffer, and the malignant jaun- 

 dice or bilious fever which makes it impossible to keep dogs in certain parts 

 of Africa is also caused by a piroplasma. Finally, under the name of Rocky 

 Mountain fever, spotted or tick-fever, the disease attacks man throughout the 

 west half of the United States. We have seen that the carrier or " go- 

 between " in the case of the malaria is the mosquito, and in the case of the 

 sleeping sickness is a tsetse fly. Piroplasma, however, is not conveyed from 

 host to host by any insect, but by mites or ticks, members or the large group 

 of arachnids, which includes besides the mites, the spiders, scorpions, har- 

 vestmen, and many others. 



I will not wearv you with more diseases. I think I have said enough 

 to show that within the last tew years a flood of light has been thrown upon 

 diseases, not only of man and his domestic animals, but upon such insignifi- 

 cant creatures as the mosquito and the tick. I have tried to show how these 

 diseases interact, and how both hosts are absolutely essential to the disease. 

 We can now to a great extent control these troubles; the old idea that there 

 is something unhealthy in the climate ot the tropics is giving way to the idea 

 that the unhealthfulness is due to definite organisms conveyed into man 

 by definite biting insects. We have at last, I think, an explanation of 

 whv Beelzebub was called the Lord of Flies." Nature 73: 235—238. 

 Jan. 4, '05. 



NEWS NOTES 



Prizes in Nature-Study. The North Carolina Nature-Study Society 

 offers to members several prizes for this year, some for schools and some for 

 individuals. (1) Best collection of seeds, named and mounted. (2) 

 Essay on " Our Oaks." (3) Essay on "Our Pines." (4) Map show- 

 ing soils, with specimens. (5) Collection of insects. (6) Tests of 

 vitality of seeds. (7) Collection of moths and butterflies hatched from 



