114 J. STEVENSON HAMILTON — THE RELATION 



possessing a partially hairy i-hinarium, appear to have been much less affected. 

 Warthog and bush-pigs died in large numbers at the time of the disease. 



Before the epidemic, tsetse-fly of one kind or another occupied many of the 

 areas in South and Central Africa, which were also the haunts of such large 

 bush-loving animals as, for example, buffalo and kudu. Hunters and travellers 

 passing through, but seldom remaining long in the districts, very naturally 

 associated such species with the fly. The apparent absence of both from the 

 same area at a later date, was further held to prove the connection ; though 

 temporary migration of the one, and fluctuation of the other, due to climatic 

 causes, may conceivably have been nearer the truth. Most of these hunters and 

 travellers too, believed that fly depended upon game, especially upon buffalo, and 

 they tried to make everything they saw fit in with this preconceived idea. 



The rinderpest seems to have exercised some obscure influence upon at least 

 certain species of tsetse-flies in a good many places. While there is no doubt 

 that Glossina vwrsitans (?) absolutely disappeared from considerable areas during 

 the course of, or immediately after, the epidemic, we have it on reliable authority 

 that elsewhere it was in no way affected. Facile as may be the explanation that 

 the disappearance of the insects, where it occurred, followed in natural course 

 the disappearance of the game, it can hardly be said to be borne out by facts. 

 Only the Bovinae and those antelopes most closely approximating to them 

 were greatly affected, while many species were practically untouched. Impala, 

 for instance, which were very numerous throughout the old fly-areas in the 

 eastern Transvaal, seem to have suft'ered hardly at all. Therefore the matter is 

 reduced to a question of whether the fly ceased to exist because of the practical 

 extinction of the animals which suffered most from rinderpest — buffalo, kudu, 

 eland, and bushbuck. 



The north-eastern Transvaal being a comparatively small area, and being one 

 moreover of whose history past and present, nine years residence entitles me to 

 speak with some authority, will furnish a convenient instance of what may have 

 taken place elsewhere. All the four species of animals indicated above abounded 

 — say thirty years ago — through the greater part of the country between the 

 Olifants and Crocodile Hivers, an area of about 120 miles by 60. There were 

 also three distinct belts of fly between these two rivers. I am obliged, here and 

 elsewhere, when speaking of pre-rinderpest days, to use the ambiguous term 

 " fly " when referring to Glossina, because there exists no record as to what the 

 particular species was. From the nature of the country, and the reputed 

 character of the insect, it may however be assumed that either G, morsitans 

 or G. ixdlidipes was present. The fly is spoken of as having been very pertina- 

 cious and aggressive, attacking men, and the donkeys which hunters occasionally 

 brought into the areas, most savagely. Donkeys always died subsequently, the 

 described symptoms being those of nagana. Although the old hunters, Dutch 

 and British, were far from being entomologists, they nevertheless all knew the 

 general appearance of a tsetse-fly. Tabanidae and Stomoxys are still present, 

 but it is inconceivable that they could have been mistaken for tsetses. 



By 1896, uninterrupted and wholesale shooting by white hunters and natives, 

 extending over a long terra of years, had nearly exterminated the eland, and had 



