BETWEEN GAME AND TSETSE-FLIES. 117 



ourselves and our natives after sundown. I collected several of the flies from 

 each belt, and handed them over to the Entomological Department at Lourenco 

 Marquez, where Mr. C. W. Howard ultimately pi'onounced them to be Glossina 

 morsito.ns. 



Now as regards the almost complete absence of game. Since it was the driest 

 time of the year, and the Msalu and Lujenda are both of them perennial streams, 

 one would have expected to find indications of game in their vicinity, if anywhere. 

 But though my companion, Mr. R. C. F. Maugham and myself, having a large 

 number of carriers to feed, hunted assiduously in the most likely spots on every 

 possible occasion, we were entirely unsuccessful in finding even old tracks dating 

 from the last rains. Although game often temporarily migrates from a country, 

 I scarcely think it could ever have been very numerous along the route we took. 

 The character of the vegetation was not such as finds most favour with antelopes 

 generally, and diu-ing oin- constant examinations of the sand-beds of the dry 

 watercourses, I do not think it would have been possible to help noticing indica- 

 tions of the recent presence of wild animals in any numbers. Nor, in view of the 

 fact that nearly every adult native we met was in possession of firearms of some 

 description, did there appear any particular reason for doubting their statement 

 that they had shot out most of such game as had existed in the countiy, long- 

 before. Certainly the swarms of G. morsitans which we encountered must have 

 been hard pressed by himger if forced to depend for their existence upon the 

 blood of a few stray herds of the larger species which may have existed. It was 

 noticeable that the fly was most in evidence near the camping and halting places. 

 The route which we followed is the usual one from the interior. It is, in fact, the 

 old slave cai'avan road, and at the present time, or at least three years ago, 

 natives were accustomed to make use of it only in very large parties, owing to 

 their fear of the predatory bands of the independent Yao chiefs, which were 

 always on the look out to snap up solitary travellers and small detachments. 

 The fly-belts themselves are thinly populated, and the natives kept no stock 

 except a few rather anremic-looking goats. The fly was not much in evidence in 

 the clearings round the villages. 



In the fly-areas, as in all the country we passed through, the vegetation was 

 remarkable for the total absence of thorn acacias. Except near the watercourses 

 it was stunted, and the trees included such forms as Brachystegia pectinata, Rhus 

 longifolia, Eugenia (juineensis, Comhretum microphijlhtm, und Afzelia. There was 

 a good deal of long thick grass, and in places, much dense undergrowth. I think 

 the fly was always thickest about the dry stream beds. These were the ordinary 

 caravan halting places, water being obtained in occasional small pools or by 

 digging. I saw a lot of fly at one halting place where a narrow swampy stream 

 trickled through mud and long grass. Dry bush, in this and every other case, 

 grew near at hand. A few stray flies only were noticed on the right bank of the 

 Msalvi River, but as soon as we crossed we had practical proof of their presence 

 in large numbers, and this continued through nearly all the bush country to about 

 two miles from the Lujenda, where cultivation seemed to stop them quite 

 suddenly. A Portuguese officer said that in places they came quite close down 

 to the Lujenda, where there was bush and no cultivation. 



