148 IMMUNITY OF DONKEY. 



lost flesh, and the consequences of the innumerable bites 

 received day and night from the Tsetse-fly completely 

 finished him. The poison possesses the property of decom- 

 posing the blood, and thereby hinders nourishment and 

 relaxes all muscles. When a short day's march south of 

 the Limpopo I found myself compelled to turn him finally 

 to account by eating him. Sal ammoniac — each week a 

 piece the size of a walnut dissolved in water and adminis- 

 tered internally — had no visible efiect and is consequently 

 no antidote. 



" The female donkey, that I bought at Lydenburg for 

 £9, held out better. . . . The main advantage, however, 

 consisted in the fact that the Tsetse could not do her any 

 harm, whether it be that the donkey finds in certain 

 leaves or in the bark of certain trees an antidote against ' 

 the poison — or that the long hair or the effluvium from 

 the beast keeps the insect ofi"." 



At the end of the volume of Mittheilungen in which 

 the above remarks appear is a map entitled : " Originalkarte 

 von C. Mauch's Beisen Im Innern von Sild-Afriha zioischen 

 Potchefstroom und Zambesi 1865—1869. Nebst Ubersirht 

 aller anderen Forschungen. Von A. Petermann." This 

 map shows by means of a coloured band the "Limit of the 

 Tsetse-fly " (" Grenze der Tsetse-Fliege '') in the vicinity of 

 the Limpopo, and also farther north, to the south of the 

 Zambesi, in Mashonaland. 



41. 1871. E. C. Buxton. 



The Entomologist, Vol. V., April, 1871, pp. 283-284 :— 

 " The plains on the south side of the Lobombo Mountains, 

 towards Delagoa Bay, was the only district where I met 

 with the Tsetse-fly, and immediately below the mountain 

 they seemed more numerous than at a greater distance. 

 The belief of the natives in the dangerous character of the 

 fly is universal ; and I never heard any doubt expressed 

 about it among the white hunters, many of whom have 

 come to this district for many years. We were told that 

 if we took our dogs over the mountains they would be 

 bitten by the fly, would go blind in a few days, and die in 

 ten days or a fortnight. The fly, which was pointed out 

 •to us as the Tsetse, was veiy like a small Horse-fly (cleg, 

 as they are called in Lancashire) ; it was very common, 



