8 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



The one thing that is positively known to get rid of 

 tsetse fly is the clearing of country. It must have shade. 

 For this reason cultivation is fatal to it, and that is why 

 it has always disappeared before civilization. The 

 presence or absence of big game appears only to be a 

 secondary consideration. There are many places in 

 Africa where the tsetse fly exists in large numbers without 

 any game being present at all. Much of the western side 

 of Africa swarms with fly in places where there are very 

 few if any large wild animals. On the other hand there 

 are a great number of spots, once the haunt of tsetse, 

 from which it has completely disappeared, although the 

 big game continues to be as numerous as ever, and needless 

 to say there are any amount of tsetse-free game countries. 



The Sabi Game Reserve, with which I have had so long 

 an acquaintance, serves as an instance of the former. 

 Up to the time of the rinderpest, that terrible epidemic 

 which carried off so many of the cattle and so much of 

 the game in the 'nineties, the Sabi Bush was full of tsetse 

 fly, but now there is not one left, neither there, nor 

 anywhere else in the Transvaal, nor even in neighbouring 

 Portuguese East Africa. But the game in the Sabi is 

 more numerous than it has been for over twenty years. 



Why did the fly disappear ? Frankly I can't say. 

 People will tell you it was because the game died out and 

 the fly died of starvation. But the game did not die 

 out ; far from it. No zebra died. The principal buck 

 present in the fly bush were impalas, and they suffered 

 little if at all from rinderpest. As a matter of fact the 

 disease attacked only certain kinds of game, such as kudu 

 and buffalo, those animals which have big moist muzzles 

 like cattle suffering most, while those kinds which have 

 hair growing low down on the muzzle, like goats and 

 sheep, escaped entirely or nearly so. Why ? I don't 



