THE WILD FAUNA OF THE EMPIEE 19 



tame antelopes, and that ' in the Lower Congo the behef that 

 G. palpalis follows pigs is very common ' — makes the following 

 highly important statement (the italics are my own) : ' Apart from 

 these observations no information was gathered on the Congo to 

 support the idea that tsetse-flies are dependent on large game. On 

 the contrary, many G. palpalis were seen in localities where there 

 was exceedingly little game of any sort. ' ^ Dr. Todd remarks that 

 Glossina palpalis showed no preference for any particular kind of 

 blood, and that on one occasion specimens of the fly * were per- 

 suaded to suck blood from a frog. ' ^ In Sierra Leone I have found 

 this species of tsetse abundant in a place where there was certainly 

 no game of any kind, though there was a herd of cattle in the 

 immediate vicinity. 



Examples to the same effect as regards other tsetse-flies might 

 easily be multiplied, but two or three instances must suffice. Mr. 

 A. H. Neumann, writing of the Athi Eiver (British East Africa) 

 above its junction with the Tsavo, in May 1895, notes the remark- 

 able scarcity of game, ' even along the banks of the river,' and 

 adds : ' Here are great stretches of uninhabited bush country with 

 a perennial river running through it, and hardly any animals, 

 though plenty of birds and of *' fly " (tsetse).' ^ In 1903 Glossina 

 tachinoides (a species closely allied to G. palpalis, and common 

 on the Benue Eiver in Northern Nigeria) was met with by Captain 

 E. Markham Carter, I. M.S., on the Tiban Eiver, in the Aden 

 Hinterland.* Describing this interesting discovery in the 

 British Medical Journal of November 17, 1906, Captain Carter 

 said : * The Arabian Glossina tachinoides does not depend for its 

 existence on big game, for, excepting gazelle, nothing else 

 frequents the belts of bush which it haunts.' We may conclude 

 this section of our subject with the recent testimony of a German 

 writer. Dr. L. Sander, with reference to Glossina m^orsitans, 

 G. pallidipes, and G. fusca in German East Africa. The author in 

 question states that, in all the districts between Tanga and Kilima 

 'Njaro investigated by him for the purpose of studying the sup- 

 posed connection between tsetse-flies and big game, everyone, 

 Europeans and natives alike, agreed in declaring that the game 

 had diminished in numbers to an extraordinary degree, but that 

 tsetse appeared each year in ever greater multitudes and in locali- 

 ties previously free from them.^ 



1 Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, vol. i. No. 1 (February 1, 

 1907), p. 62. 



2 Ibid. p. 70. 



s A. H. Neumann, Elephant- Hunting in East Equatorial Africa (London : 

 Rowland Ward, Limited, 1898). pp. 141-142. The species of tsetse in this 

 case was in all probability Glossina pallidipes. 



^ Since the south-west corner of Arabia is zoo-,o^eoe:raphicallT a part of 

 the Ethiopian Res:ion, there is nothina: remarkable in a tsetse-fly beino: found 

 there, although the genus Glossina was previously supposed to be confined 

 to the African continent and the islands in the Bight of Biafra. 



e L. Sander, Die Tsetsen (Leipzig, 1905), p. 46. B 2 



