FLY-BELT ON BEIEA RAILWAY. 45 



us to believe that Glossina inoculates domestic animals with tlie 

 germs of some virulent malady analogous to anthrax." 



The year 1895 witnessed the publication of Surgeon-Major 

 (now Lieut.-Col.) Bruce's " Preliminary Report on the Tsetse-fly 

 r)isease" [131], which afterwards was practically embodied in his 

 *' Further Report" of two years later. In 1895, too, one or two 

 interesting notes on different species of Tsetse-flies appeared in the 

 GeograpJiical Journal. What appears to have been the Somali- 

 land Tsetse-fly [vide supra, and 94 and 124], Glossina longipemm, 

 Corti, is recorded to have been met with in the previous year in 

 the Korayo Valley, Somaliland, where its bite proved fatal to 

 baggage animals belonging to Major Mainwaring [133]. The 

 second note, by W. A. Eckersley [134], refers to Tsetse-fly in 

 connection with the Beira Railway, then in course of con- 

 struction. The fly is stated to have made its appearance at 

 Chimoio, in Portuguese East Africa, as a result of the presence 

 there " of a large number of horses, oxen, and other animals 

 . . ., attracted thither by the facilities of transport offered by 

 the railway . . . ." Another interesting statement by Mr. 

 Eckersley is that a couple of ponies, "purchased in Natal for the 

 use of the survey party, passed through Beira, Fontesvilla, and 

 the intervening ' fly-belt,' to Chimoio without suffering any ill 

 effects ; they served the party until the conclusion of the work, 

 and were finally sold at a profit. No particular precautions 

 against the ' fly ' were adopted, except occasional brushing with 

 green boughs. It is quite certain that the Tsetse-flies settled 

 on the horses in considerable numbers, and remained quite long 

 enough to allow of their biting." Since it is stated that the 

 country traversed by the first twenty miles of the railway was, 

 at the period referi-ed to, " teeming with big game, including 

 lions, buffaloes, most of the South African species of antelope, 

 wart hogs and wild boars," it would almost seem as though the 

 haematozoon of Nagana must, for some reason or other, have 

 been absent from the blood of the wild animals near the course 

 of the line. 



M. Edouard Foa's volume [135] on his experiences of big 

 game shooting, also published in 1895, contains many observa- 

 tions on the Tsetse-fly, including an interesting description of its 

 method of feeding. 



In the following year a review of Bruce's " Preliminary 

 Report " was published by W. F. H. Blandford [136], who laid 

 stress on the importance of studying the bionomics of the para- 



