MONOGRAPH OF THE TSETSE-FLIES. 



(Genus GLOSSTNA, Wied.) 



CHAPTER I. 



THE BIONOMICS OF TSETSE-FLIES (GENUS 

 GLOSSINA). ' 



Although a fairly good idea of the Bionomics of Tsetse-flies 

 may be gained from a perusal of the Bibliography and Appen- 

 dices to the present work (Chapters VI. and VII.), it will 

 probably be more useful and convenient to the reader to give a 

 short resume of our knowledge of this subject in a single chapter. 

 At the outset, however, a word of explanation is necessary as 

 to the use of the term " Tsetse." * Since the insects which 

 form the subject of this Monograph were first encountered by 

 Englishmen in the vicinity of the Limpopo, the word Tsetse was 



* The form here given, which is employed throughout this book, is the 

 most usual one; but the following variants in spelling are also used by 

 different authors : Ts^tsi, Tse-tse, Tsetze, Tse-tsi, Tzetse, Tzetze, Tzee-tzee, 

 Tetse, Sets6 (Major Vardon). There can, of course, be no doubt that the 

 woid is onomatopoetic, and, if used originally for Glossina, that it owes 

 its origin to the peculiar buzzing sound made by the fly on the wing or 

 when commencing to suck blood. But, in spite of many endeavours, I 

 have so far failed to discover with certainty whether it belongs to the 

 language of one of the South African Bantu tribes, or was invented by the 

 Boer " Voortrekkers " on coming in contact with the fly for the first time 

 after crossing the Vaal Kiver between 1835 and 1837. Since the fly was 

 first met with (by English hunters, at any rate— see Chapter II.) in the - 

 vicinity of the Limpopo, it might be supposed that the word Tsetse is 

 Matabeli or Zulu, but I have been unable to find out whether this is so. 

 Gordon Gumming, the earliest English writer to use the word, although 

 not the first British sportsman to meet with the fly, merely speaks of '' the 

 fly called 'Tsetse'"; further on in the same volume he describes an encoun- 

 ter with "the famous fly called ' Tsetse.' " Vardon and Oswell, who procured 

 the actual specimen described by Westwood under the well-known name 

 Glcssina morsitans, are equally reticent as to the origin of its ordinary 

 designation, and all subsequent writers have been content to use the word 



