222 FOA'S ACCOUNT OF TSETSE SUCKING BLOOD. 



its proboscis projecting in front, in a mistrustful attitude, 

 ready to take flight. When it believes itself safe, it 

 lowers its weapon, separates its feet so as to flatten itself 

 out more and pierces the flesh without causing any pain to 

 start with, as does the mosquito. . . . While its proboscis, 

 which is at least a quarter of a centimetre in length, dis- 

 appears completely in the flesh, it remains motionless 

 sucking blood, its abdomen swelling and becoming rose- 

 coloured owing to its transparency, and immediately 

 afterwards appearing deep red and plump. It is not until 

 the moment when it has already imbibed a large portion 

 of its meal, that a slight pain or rather itching betokens 

 its presence. When its stomach is full it is still very 

 difiicult to catch with the hand, for it does not fly ofi", but 

 quickly dodges to one side. The natives and I myself, 

 when they showed me the way, used to catch it in a 

 difierent fashion : the blade of a knife is laid at a distance 

 of 30 centimetres from the fly flat on the arm or on 

 whatever part of the body it has settled, and is then 

 slowly slid along until it meets and squeezes the proboscis 

 of the fly still buried in the flesh and thus makes the 

 insect a prisoner * ; then, without relaxing the pressure, 

 you raise the blade and turn it over, and so kill the fly, or 

 else seize it with the fingers. Of course you have already 

 been bitten by the fly, but you console yourself by thinking 

 that, at any rate, there is one enemy less among the 

 surrounding thousands. f 



" I have now to speak of the sensations occasioned in 

 domestic animals by its bite. Of these animals, I shall 

 mention those that one has to possess in Africa : the ox, 

 dog, donkey, mule, sheep, pig, and goat. Livingstone 

 states that the latter and sometimes the donkey are 

 exempt from the con.sequences of the bite, while all the 

 other animals die from it. I am able to state, after having 

 made several experiments, that none of the animals I 

 have mentioned survives it ; it depends simply and solely 

 on the number of the bites. The local fauna is inoculated 

 with the poison of the fly from its youth up ; it is more- 

 over fi'om it that the insect obtains its food ; but when 



* In Sierra Leone my Timminy hammock-boys used to catch Tsetse- 

 flies {Glossina palpalis) in the same way. — E. E. A. 



f " This way of catching it with a knife seems to prove that the Tsetse 

 does not see in front of and below it." 



