384 • C. F. M. SWYNNERTON. 



in the paper from which I have already quoted. It comprises types that are 

 relatively useless from every point of view. As for rainfall, the merits of wooding in 

 bringing about this kind of condensation are in dispute, and at best only the big- 

 wooding area of the Lusitu would need consideration ; but all local evidence goes 

 to show that it is the mountains, not the wooding, that perform this service for ur 

 here. The objection in any case is applicable to any clearing measures. 



Another difficulty is administrative. Even on the British side of the border, 

 where unauthorised fires are forbidden by legislation, such fires still take place. 

 This will happen also here, but the local set-backs involved will weigh lightly in the 

 balance against the benefit that shoul d accrue from the general success. The penalty for 

 imauthorised burning should be severe, and even if it should be necessary to employ 

 a few extra police-boys for four months in the year, the measure would be a very 

 cheap one. There should be no discontent over it amongst the natives, as late 

 burning represents their own old custom, and, whatever their infringements, they 

 still speak of it as the correct method. Dr. Lawrence, speaking of the fact that 

 native huts and granaries must have the grass round them burned at an early date 

 to protect them against the grass fires, has suggested that it will be more difficult 

 to protect against late fires, and that it will also be difficult, when one of the guard 

 fixes gets away, to discriminate between real accidents and pretended ones. It 

 seems to me that the real accidents and cases of hardship will be reduced to a mini- 

 mum — along with the carelessness or lack of adequate hoeing preparation that 

 produce most of them — ^by a refusal to excuse them. The natives adapted themselvei& 

 successfully to the late burning of the Zulu regime and even now have sometimes 

 to meet late, fierce fires, as they had to in some of Gwenzi's heavy grass-jungle 

 country in 1918. Naturally they would receive ample warning. 



Another difficulty that has been raised in conversation — but it is no difficulty 

 at all — is that late burning is supposedly bad for the pasture. The excellent grasses 

 left us here by the Zulus, who burned late and regularly, are a sufficient reply. It is 

 true that continued burning checks the development of a " close sole " of still 

 better grasses that otherwise follows on heavy stocking by cattle ; but if you stop 

 proper burning before you stock, you lose your pasture altogether. The land goes 

 to dense wooding, as it is now fast doing everywhere in Mossurise. Wholesale 

 late burning is in any case not being recommended for country that is already 

 carrying cattle. 



Simultaneous burning off of the infested country — and more or less simultaneity 

 would in any case result from postponement — would probably discommode the fficB 

 on the wing in a more direct fashion. It would banish the game for the time being, 

 and in the case of brevipalpis in the " Oblong," it would probably force the fly either 

 to take refuge in the ravine-type thickets which a course of late burnings should 

 eventually destroy, or, in part at least, to perish. Its probable effect on morsitans 

 seems more doubtful in view of this fly's relative independence of shade, but 

 observations by Lamborn (Bull. Ent. Res. vii, p. 39) and others show that it is usual 

 even for this fly to desert burnt areas. 



Unemerged pupae would no doubt remain in any event to repopulate the area^ 

 but Lloyd took a greater percentage of dead pupae from burnt areas than from 

 unburnt ; and if I am right in my expectation that the heat of the October fire* 



