142 



Tsetse-flies have been made, with widely different results, as will be 

 seen from the subjoined resume. 



Simple Catching. A trial of simply catching Tsetse-flies, as a means 

 of destroying them, was undertaken by H. Koch (81) in a well-defined 

 infested area. The site chosen for the experiment was Mugassiro I., in 

 Mara Bay, on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria, and the trial lasted 

 from 29th January 1913 to 31st January 1914. The island, which is 

 1 1 mile in circumference and swarms with crocodiles, is inhabited and 

 covered with dense bush. Two pairs of boys skilled in catching Tsetse 

 worked there for nearly a year, each pair relieving the other every 

 three months. The daily catch was placed in glass bottles, half full 

 of spirit, the bottles being sent to camp at intervals of ten days for the 

 flies caught to be counted. In 340 days the bag of G. palpalis amounted 

 to 74,38249,883 males and 24,499 females, but the flies on the island 

 were not exterminated, an unsatisfactory result attributed by the 

 author to insufficiency of personnel and the shape of the island. 



Trapping and Catching by means of Bird-lime or "Tanglefoot." Thi2 

 subjoined description of a highly successful mode of catching G. palpalis 

 is taken from the Sleeping Sickness Bulletin. 1 " Mr. Maldonado, 

 manager of one of the estates on the Island of Principe, has devised 

 a method of destroying Glossina palpalis. Noticing that the flies 

 attacked the backs of the labourers when they were occupied in 

 mowing grass, and were consequently in a stooping posture, he ordered 

 that such labourers should wear a black cloth covering their backs, 

 coated with a glutinous substance [apparently bird-lime] on its outer 

 surface. Between April 1906 and the end of 1907, 133,778 Tsetse were 

 thus trapped on this plantation alone. While the Portuguese Commission 

 was in the island there were not more than four persons who went 

 about with these cloths. The Commission often asked Mr. Maldonado 

 to send men with black cloths to places where they had seen a large 

 number of flies. ' As a rule two men were enough in the short space 

 of a week to make these places passable (practicables) .' On the first 

 days the numbers taken would be 1,500-2,000 ; at the end of the 

 week 15 or 20. The method has been tried on two other estates, with 

 the same favourable results." 



Mr. Maldonado's method was subsequently adopted by the Medical 

 Commission which, under the leadership of Surgeon-Captain B. F. 

 Bruto Da Costa (36-40), was entrusted by the Portuguese Government 

 with the task of deciding upon the measures to be taken to deal with 

 and, if possible, free the Island of Principe of G. palpalis and sleeping 

 sickness, which was introduced about the year 1890. In addition to 

 prescribing the catching of Tsetse-flies by means of cloths coated with 

 bird-lime, the following procedure was laid down by the Commission 

 for the guidance of the planters : marshes were to be drained, and the 

 woods affording shelter to G. palpalis were to be cut down ; the wild 

 pigs, which swarmed in the island, were to be destroyed, and similar 

 measures were to be applied to civet cats and stray dogs ; scrubby 

 jungle was to be cleared, and all domestic animals suffering from 

 trypanosomiasis were to be slaughtered. The medical measures 

 adopted included the isolation of patients and the giving of atoxyl 

 injections as soon as possible after the bite of the fly. 



Between the month of August 1912 and the end of May 1913, while 

 the Commission was in existence, a brigade of labourers wearing black 



1 Vol. ii, no. 13, p. 26 (Jan. 1,910). 



