42 GEOGRAPHICAL RECOEDS. 



The mention of ticks is of interest in connection with the know- 

 ledge that the parasite of Texas fever among cattle is dissemin- 

 ated by these animals ; although it is scarcely likely that ticks 

 can act as carriers of Tsetse-fly disease, it would perhaps be worth 

 while to settle the point by actual experiment. 



" De Angola A Contra-Costa," by H. Capello and R, Ivens 

 [96], published in 1886, contains a chapter (illustrated with 

 rough wood-cuts of the head and foot enlarged) on the Tsetse- 

 fly, entitled "A Tze-Tze " ; but, since it is in Portuguese, the 

 present writer has unfortunately been unable to examine its 

 contents. In the same year interesting details of the occurrence 

 of the Tsetse in Mashuna Land and the region between the 

 Zambesi and Lake Nyasa were given by W. M. Kerr [97, 98] 

 who also described the means adopted by the native women in 

 Mashuna Land for making dogs, goats, and sheep — " of which 

 they have very few, seemingly only kept as pets " — immune to 

 Tsetse-fly disease when young. 



In 1887 Josef Chavanne [99] declared that the Lower Congo 

 must be free from Tsetse-fly, since cattle throve fairly well in 

 that region. The same year saw the publication of the second 

 edition of Justus Perthes' special large-scale map of Africa, in 

 which the limits of the Tsetse-fly in the vicinity of the Limpopo 

 are indicated by dotted lines. In 1887, too, Dr. C. W. Schmidt 

 [lOlJ recorded the fact that the Tsetse-fly did not occur in the 

 districts of Usambara and Bondei, near the Pangani River, 

 German East Africa, and that consequently it was possible to 

 keep cattle on a large scale in Usambai-a.* 



The ranks of those who considered that the disease produced 

 by the bite of the Tsetse-fly in domestic animals was not due to 

 a poison secreted by the fly itself received a further accession in 

 1888, when A. Laboulbene [102] expressed the opinion that the 

 Tsetse " carries with its proboscis septic matter drawn from 

 diseased animals, and communicates it to others that are 

 healthy, the result of which is illness and possible death. It 

 remains to be explained why the bite, which is said to be deadly 

 to cattle, is not so to human beings." In the same year, in a 

 communication to the Royal Geographical Society from Dr. Holub 

 [104], allusion was made to the abundance of Tsetse-fly in 

 forests, consisting of small trees, in the Batoka country ; 

 F. Jeppe [105] recorded the partial disappearance of the fly, 



* A recent paper by Stuhlmann [XXVI.] would seem to show that nowa- 

 days, at any rate as regards Usambara, this is a mistake. 



