DISLIKE OF TSETSE TO FAECAL IMATTER. 23 



which the females alone suck V)]oocl, iu the Tsetse both sexes are\ 



blood-sucking flies. This has at present been recorded only by'' 



Colonel Bruce,* whose statement, however, is supported by the 



fact that a male of Glossina longipennis, Corti, from Somaliland, in 



the collection of the British Museum, has its abdomen swollen and 



distorted, owing to containing decomposed blood, while a small 



globule of dried blood may be seen adhering to the end of its 



proboscis. 



It is remarkable that ordure, which has 

 Dislike of Tsetse to ^ ^^ ^- r -nw ^ 



human habitations, so strong an attraction for many Diptera 



and to animal (especially uf the family Muscidse, to which 



the genus Glossina belongs), has precisely the 



opposite effect on the Tsetse. For this reason the fly appears to 



avoid the presence of man, and is rarely found in the vicinity of 



human habitatioiis, or within the confines of a town or other 



settlement.! Livingstone [2l] alludes to " the well-known disgust 



which the Tsetse shows to animal excreta, as exhibited when a 



village is placed in its habitat," and states that the fact " has 



been observed and turned to account by some of the [native] 



doctors," who protect animals about to pass through a fly-belt 



by smearing them over with a mixture containing excrement 



and other ingredients. Similar statements have also been made 



by subsequent writers [(/. Kirk, 28, and Captain Gibbons, 152J. 



According to Foa [135], on killing an antelope in a patch of 



" Fly," " in order to get rid of the Tsetse, which literally covei- 



"ame and hunters, it is only necessary to open the animal's belly 



and evacuate the entrails ; the insect at once ceases to torment 



you." 



Until the publication of Colonel Bruces 

 Reproduction. 



" Eeport," the Tsetse was believed to lay eggs 



and breed in the droppings of the buffalo, and various writers 



have attempted to account in this way for the close association 



that, in South Africa, at any rate, was alleged to exist between 



the fly and that animal [cf. Bradshaw, yy, and Nicholls and 



Eglington, 114]. But although the flies belonging to the genej-a 



Stomoxys and Lyperosia, which are the nearest existing allies of 



Glossina, undoubtedly breed in dung,| it will not surprise the 



* Cf. Chapter VII., Appendix A, p. 273. 



t That this is nob invariably the case is shown by the fact that tho 

 British Museum collection contains specimens of Glossina pallidipes, Austen, 

 stated to have been "caught in Witu town." 



X Bouch6 ["■ Naturgcxchichte der Insekten" (Berlin, 18.34) pp. 55-56) 

 states that the larva of the common European Stomoxys calcitrans, Linn., 

 is found in summer and autumn in horse-dung, in company with the larva 



