Jz8 C. F. M. SWYNNERTON. 



Baboons are abundant everywhere, especially perhaps in the Sitatongas, in the 

 mountains of Spungabera and parts of the British border, and in the dense Lusitu 

 wooding. The forest monkey, Cercopithecus alhogularis beirensiSj is to be found 

 wherever high dense forest is present, and the bush monkey, C. pygerythrus, is 

 ubiquitous, in smallish numbers. 



Distribution of other potential Hosts of Tsetses. 



I shall refer sufficiently to man and the smallest mammals below under 

 " Food of the Fly." But facts to be referred to also, and particularly Lloyd's 

 results from his examinations of the gut-contents of G. morsitans, show that in 

 considering the fly's dependence on the local game population we cannot leave 

 out of account the local bird and reptile population. Guineafowls and francolins, 

 the former particularly, both crested and horned {Gutter a edouardi and Numida 

 mitrata), are everywhere abundant, the crested guineafowl especially frequenting 

 dense forest. Of doves, all ground-feeders, two of five common species occur 

 in dense forest, three throughout the other woodland types. Each of these two 

 main woodland divisions boasts also its own considerable low-searching insectivorous 

 bird population and its common touraco. The smaller seed-eaters — waxbills, 

 whydahs, weavers, canaries — are a very important item in the bird population 

 everywhere except in dense forest, and even there (as I noticed in the Madanda) 

 in the open spaces that are covered with grasses that burn. They are nearly 

 always found on or near the ground, and commonly in great flocks. They are 

 most abundant in the non-forested, heavily seeding dolerite areas — with less 

 permanent fly. Quails were seen everywhere in grass-country and much on the 

 borders of the fnorsitans vleis. 



Another bird that haunts every type of woodland and has been recorded as being 

 attacked by tsetses (Lloyd) is the ground hornbill (Bucorax cafer), purely a ground- 

 searcher. It walks in small spread-out parties and (in common with the insect- 

 tivorous birds) makes up somewhat for any lack of numbers by adopting a definite 

 beat, most parts of which it revisits at intervals of a few days. In common with 

 them also it probably does the fly more harm than good, for it destroys many snakes 

 and the young of ground-nesting birds. Secretary birds and the various storks may 

 be classed with it in this respect and are found in rather special association with the 

 two formations about to be mentioned. 



The water-haunting birds are found mainly on the basalt (on the Buzi) and 

 granite-gneiss. Jacanas, egrets, bitterns, hammerheads, moorhens, rails, grebes, and 

 occasional herons are found at the larger pools of the vleis of the latter formation, 

 constantly but in small numbers and in contact with some of the dry season centres 

 of G. morsitans. The two largest rivers and such fine series of pools as those east of 

 Chibabava boast a far larger water and waterside population, but, so far as I have 

 seen, it does not come into really intimate and essential contact anywhere with the 

 main tsetse populations. The ground-running birds — ^the various bustards and 

 coursers, dikkops, sandpipers, plovers, etc. — ^are particularly addicted for niau}- 

 spring and summer months to the shorter-grassed and sparingly wooded basalt, and 

 certainly also to the granite-gneiss, though I have not seen them there when the grass 

 has been recently burnt. 



