BIONOMICS OF GLOSSINA MORSITANS. 55 



Glossina morsitans, indeed, is by no means confined to low-l^'ing 

 districts. Some three years ago, Mr. E. A. Copeman, at that 

 time District Commissioner at Kasempa, forwarded to the 

 Museum a immber of specimens of this species taken by him in 

 January, 1908, on the Congo-Zambesi watershed, Kasempa 

 District, North- Western Rhodesia, at an altitude of from 5,000 

 to 5,500 ft. In Nyasaland, however, according to Sir Alfred 

 Sharpe,* 6?. morsitans is " seldom found above 3,000 feet.'' 



The idea, formerly generally entertained, that G. viorsitans 

 " appears to avoid the presence of man, and is rarely found in 

 the vicinity of human habitations, or within the confines of a 

 town or other settlement," f is only partially true, since native 

 villages in areas in which this species occurs are often infested by 

 the fly. I Thus Mr. P. E. Hall, Native Commissioner, Lundazi, 

 writing on "The Movements of Glossina morsitans in the 

 Lundazi District, North-Eastern Rhodesia," § speaks of native 

 villages (Nawaiia and vicinity) which are " full of fly " at the 

 present time, or in which G. morsitans was "a plague" some six 

 or seven years ago. In the Katanga District of the Congo 

 Free State, G. morsitans has been observed by Dr. Sheffield 

 Neave to enter villages on a caravan-path infested with the fly, 

 between the Lufira and Lualaba Rivers. |j 



Glossina morsitans feeds with avidity on the blood of almost 

 any large mammal that comes in its way.^ The old dispute as 

 to the special dependence of this species upon the buffalo (Buhahis 

 caffer), which has so often been alleged, still continues, and, in 

 view of the enquiry now being prosecuted by the Entomological 

 Research Committee,** anything like a final pronouncement upon 

 the question would be premature. All that need here be said is 

 that the available evidence upon the point is to a certain extent 



* Bulletin of Entomological Research, Vol. I, Part 3, p. 174 (October, 

 1910). 



t -See Austen, "A Monograph of the Tsetse-Flies," p. 23 (1903). 



X According to Sir Alfred Sharpe (loc. cit.), freedom from G. morsitans 

 in the case of villages situated in fly-areas is due to the clearing of the 

 surrounding bush in order to make food-gardens. 



§ Bulletin of Entomological Research, Vol. I, Part 3, pp. 183-184, and 

 sketch-map (October, 1910). 



II Cf. Sheffield Neave, M.R.C.P., M.R.C.S., British Medical Journal, 

 April 25, 1908, p. 988. 



^ Like G. hrcvipalpis (see p. 94) the present species readily sucks the 

 blood of wild pigs; in Nyasaland, according to Dr. H. Hcarsey, P.M.O., 

 Nyasaland Protectorate, G. morsitans was on one occasion seen to settle 

 "literally in hundreds" on the carcass of a wart hog {cf. British Medical 

 Journal, May 15, 1909, p. 1211). 



** Vide supra, p. 54. 



