GOPtDON GUMMING MENTIONS TSETSE. 33 



Writing in 1843 of the genus Glnssina, of which the only 

 species then known was Gl. longipalpis, Wied., the French 

 dipterist Macquart was led [6], owing to the fineness of the 

 mouth-parts, to infer that the flies were not blood-suckers, but 

 subsisted upon the nectar of flowers. Macquart expressed his 

 opinion in the following terms : "II est probable qu'il ne vit pas 

 du sang des animaux comme les Stomoxes, mais du sue des fleurs. 

 Les deux soies que renferme la trompe, et qui constituent le 

 su^oir, sont d'une finesse telle qu'il est difiicile de concevoir 

 qu'elles puissent percer la peau, et la faiblesse de cet organe 

 parait encore demontree par la modification des palpes, qui 

 s'alongent et se creusent pour lui former un foarreau " {op. cit. 

 p. 113). Macquart gave some exceedingly poor figures of what 

 he called Glossina longipalpis in the work in question, and in the 

 "Supplement" [8] published in 1850. 



In the latter year R. Gordon Gumming [9], who had hunted 

 in the districts previously visited by Captain Cornwallis Harris, 

 first mentioned by name " the fly called * Tsetse,' " which he 

 referred to a little later as " the famous fly called ' tsetse,' whose 

 bite is certain death to oxen and horses." Gordon Gumming 

 described the " hunter's scourge " as " similar to a fly in Scotland 

 called ' kleg,' * but a little smaller," and gave the earliest pub- 

 lished details of the effects of its bite on horses. From his use 

 of the word Tsetse it is evident that it was the name given to 

 the fly either by Boer hunters or by the natives who at that 

 time inhabited what is now the Zoutpansberg district of the 

 Transvaal. In the same year (1850) Westwood [lo] published 

 his well-known paper on the genus Glossina, in which Glossina 

 morsitans and two other species (though these prove to have 

 been previously described) were named and described (vide 

 infra). Westwood quoted a letter from Major Vardon (a well- 

 known sportsman and contemporary of Gordon Gumming), from 

 whom he had received his specimens of Gl. morsitans, and 

 endeavoured to identify the " Tsetse " of South Africa with the 

 " Zimb " or " Tsaltsalya " of James Bruce. 



Notes on the Tsetse-fly were published in 1852 and 1853 by 

 William Gotton Oswell [ll, 15, 18], who had hunted with 

 Major Vardon, while a French writer, M. Arnaud [l2], having 

 examined a specimen of Glossina morsitans brought home by 

 Oswell, expressed the opinion that it was identical with a fly met 

 with by himself in Sennaar, where its effects on cattle appear to 



* Hmmatopota or Tabanus s^^p. (Fam. Tabanidae).— E. E. A. 



D 



