154 First Report on Economic Zoology. 



Entebbe, Uganda, 



Tail Sejpteitiber, 1901. 



7'o The Mabquess of Lansdowne, K.G. 



My Lord, — I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of jour 

 Lordship's despatch Xo. 190 of July 20th, with enclosures regarding the 

 question of the existence of the Tsetse-fly in connection with the preser- 

 vation of the Buffalo, and in reply to submit the following remarks, in so 

 far as my own experience has taught me, on this vexed question. 



I may say at once that I am iirmly of the opinion that in East Africa 

 the existence of the Tsetse-fly was never in any way connected with the 

 presence of the Buffalo more than any other species of game. 



I first met with the true Tsetse, in any great numbers, and consequently 

 suffered much from their needle-like bite, in German East Africa, about 

 eighty miles inland from Saadani, in February, 1886. 



At that time impala, hartebeest, zebras, and warthogs were found in 

 large numbers, also a few sable antelopes, but there were no Buffaloes 

 anywhere in the vicinity of my shooting grounds. 



In 1887 I again found this fly in great numbers in a small patch of 

 thick bush, about a mile and a half long and three quarters of a mile wide, 

 about ten miles west of Taveita. 



In this bush which projected from the forest I certainly found buffaloes 

 occasionally, but as a rule they preferred to lie up for the day in the thick 

 and cooler forest, in which there were no Tsetse-flies. 



The bush in question was a favourite resort of impalas, and a small 

 dik-dik (Modoqua), the latter in great numbers, and also a few bush-bucks 

 and waterback. At that time (1887) Buffaloes may be said to have swarmed 

 in the vicinity of Tareita, but I never saw a Tsetse-fly in this one 

 particular patch of bush. 



Later on, in 1888-89 and 1890, the fly was met with, also in great 

 numbers, along the old caravan road from about two miles south of the 

 Tsavo river, as far as Kibwezi. Between these two points there were practi- 

 cally no Buffalo, but a great number of dik-dik and a few impala. The 

 flies and the small game' are still there, but there are certainly no Buffaloes. 



In 1891-2, after rinderpest had carried off nearly all the Buffaloes (at 

 least 90 per cent.) throughout East Africa, Mr. Rogers, the present sub- 

 commissioner of the Tanaland province, and myself found the Tsetse-fly 

 existing in considerable numbers in a narrow belt of forest, not more than 

 a mile wide, between Mkonumbi and Witu, and we were told by the natives 

 that the GaUas, when driving cattle to Lamu for sale, always drove them 

 through the forest by night, and that the herdsmen carried smoking 

 firebrands to keep the flies off. 



With the exception of a few bushbuck and duykers, there was no game 

 in the vicinity of this belt of forest. 



These four places are the only areas, the first and third ones only 

 being of any considerable extent, in which I have myself met with the 

 true Tsetse-fly, and yet, until they were decimated by rinderpest, Buffaloes 

 were more or less common throughout East Africa, and perhaps in no 

 part of the Continent were they evei* more plentiful than the Masai 

 country between Kilimanjaro and Lake Baringo, Mau Plateau, and 

 Turkwell. Throughout the whole of this vast area the Tsetse was, and is, 

 non-existent. 



