284 POISONOUS INSECTS 



insects is the dread tsetse-fly. This insect resembles a large horsefly, 

 and is death to horses and some other varieties of stock. In fact, it is 

 impossible to use cattle, horses or dogs in the badly infested districts. 



But the ravages of the tsetse-fly do not stop here, bad as they are. 

 It is known as the Glossitia palpalis to the naturalist and as the bearer 

 of the dread "sleeping disease." Carrying this deadly sickness from 

 one person to another by means of its l)ite, it is responsible for the 

 deaths of more than a hundred thousand natives in Uganda alone, and 

 even Europeans cannot consider themselves immune. The disease is 

 confined to the fly-infested belts, which extend over wide areas. In 

 the interior of Usoga, on the banks of many rivers, in swamps on the 

 shores of numerous lakes, great swarms of these emissaries of death 

 are to be found. One person afflicted with the disease can in this way 

 communicate it to countless thousands. \\'hole villages have been 

 completely exterminated and the lake shores and river banks bid fair 

 to be entirely depopulated. Great tracts in Usoga which had formerly 

 been famed for their high state of cultivation relapsed into forests. 

 The weakness of the victims and the terror of the survivors permitted 

 a sudden and great increase in the number of leopards and added 

 another scourge to the stricken people. By the end of 1905 more than 

 two liundrcd thousand persons out of a population in those regions, 

 ivhich could not have exceeded three hundred thousand, had perished. 



But hope is now being extended by the scientists that this 

 death-dealing scourge may be exterminated. The disease may be 

 curable or the isolation of patients may prevent its being carried to 

 those in health. Whenever possible, the fly is being banished by cut- 

 ting down trees and clearing away the brush. All the powers of the 

 government are exerted toward putting an end to this horror and the 

 reign of terror. Scientists l)end over their microscopes, international 

 boards of great physicians discuss the subject about long tables. Some 

 day, somehow^ the tsetse-fly and the sleeping sickness will be banished 

 forever. 



The Mosquito. — With the approach of twilight comes the 

 mosquito, strident-voiced and fever-bearing; and the most thorough 

 precautions must be taken against him and other insect dangers. The 

 traveler and sportsman lives in a large mosquito-house made entirely 



