154 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



far up the Tamalakan. After 1878 no buffalo was 

 ever seen again on the Botletlie river, and soon 

 after the disappearance of the buffaloes the tse- 

 tse flies, which had up to that time constantly 

 infested two belts of forest near the western bank 

 of the river, ceased to exist. There are neither 

 tse-tse flies nor buffaloes along the Botletlie river 

 to-day, though several species of antelopes as well 

 as zebras were a few years ago, and are probably 

 still, existent there. 



Again, in the early 'seventies of the last century 

 there were two " fly )! belts lying across the road from 

 Bamangwato to the Zambesi, the first a tract of 

 forested country some twelve miles broad, situated 

 to the south of Daka, and the second occupying 

 a lesser extent of ground of similar character 

 between Pandamatenka and the Zambesi. At the 

 same date, all along the southern bank of the 

 Zambesi and Chobi rivers to the westward of the 

 Victoria Falls, tse-tse flies were present in such 

 numbers that it was no exaggeration to speak of 

 them as swarming, or as resembling a swarm of 

 bees, whilst prodigious numbers of buffaloes were 

 likewise to be found all the year round in the 

 same locality. The buffaloes seldom went more 

 than a mile or so away from the river, and it was 

 my experience that where the buffaloes did not 

 penetrate, the country was entirely free from "fly." 

 Both the one and the other were confined in 

 this part of the country to the near vicinity of 

 the river, where, however, both literally swarmed. 

 In the "fly" belts aforementioned, crossed by the 

 waggon road to the Zambesi, buffaloes were only 

 present during the wet season and the early part 

 of the dry season, retiring eastwards as the vleys 

 dried up. In these "fly" belts, however, tse-tse were 

 not nearly so numerous as along the Zambesi and 

 Chobi, where the buffaloes were present all the 



