HOOFED ANIMALS 9 



think any one knows, and I doubt whether any one has 

 tried to find out. The fact that it was the more goat -like, 

 in this respect, of the antelopes that were immune, is 

 not generally known, I believe. 



The most reasonable explanation for the disappearance 

 of tsetse fly from the Sabi Bush (and many other places 

 in Africa at the same time and under similar circumstances) 

 would seem to be that the fly died from the rinderpest 

 poison ; but experiments conducted in East Africa did 

 not support this idea : so the mystery is one that must 

 await clearing up by some investigator of the future. 

 It seems worth while finding out. Fly is admitted to 

 feed on all kinds of game, and in fact any blood it can 

 get, so that the starvation theory is quite out of court 

 in the cases I refer to. The great point is that the fly 

 absolutely disappeared, so that in the Sabi Reserve I 

 have been able to live for nearly a dozen years with 

 stock of all kinds right in the middle of the old fly 

 area. 



If the reason for this disappearance, absolute and 

 complete, of all the swarms of tsetse fly within less than 

 six months, and without any marked diminution of the 

 majority of the different kinds of game, from a certain 

 locality, could be discovered, we should I think have 

 gone a long way to the solving of the problem which now 

 confronts the experts in Central Africa. 



As regards the main problem of fly and game, the facts 

 from both points of view are now fortunately well known 

 to those in authority, and there seems every probability, 

 reasonable experiments having been tried, of a just 

 balance being eventually struck, which, while duly safe- 

 guarding the health of human beings and their domestic 

 animals, will not countenance any reckless and wanton 

 wholesale squandering of irreplaceable wild life. 



