164 JAS. J. SIMPSON — ENTOMOLOGICAL 



One cannot emphasise too strongly the necessity for extensive and continued 

 clearing in Kaballa station. 



From Kaballa the country is very hilly to Katanta, and the road, though 

 following the valleys in places, nevertheless crosses over some moderately high 

 hills. These hills are much more rocky than in the north, and the vegetation is 

 scantier, but the valleys are thickly wooded, and oil palms occur in great num- 

 bers. Some of the towns are situated on the tops of these rocky hills, and are 

 very inaccessible. Simimaia, the first of these at which a halt was made, is a 

 densely populated Warra-Warra Limba town, built on a granite shelf on the 

 south-east side of a ridge at a height of 2,300 feet. Haemaphi/salis leaclii was 

 found on the cattle in this town. 



Between Simimaia and Bafodea, Glossina palpalis was caught in numbers on 

 the banks of the Mantia Stream, while Tabanus hingsleyi occurs in the town of 

 Bafodea itself. The same species of tick as that found at Simimaia was 

 obtained from the cattle here. Between Bafodea and Kamakumba the country 

 is open, and the hills are very rounded, boss-like, and covered with grass, a few 

 trees and some low scrub. The town of Kamakumba is situated in a knrimi, and 

 Glossina palpalis was very abundant. Not far from Kamakumba G. palpalis was 

 again found in a kurimi, and at the next halting place, Kamatoto, the same 

 species of tsetse was taken, along with Tabanus kingsleyi and T. argenteus* 



Kamatoto is a new town under a Limba Chief, but the great majority of the 

 inhabitants are Foulahs and Mandingos who migrated from the town of Karima 

 (see p. 167) owing to the population of the latter place becoming too large for the 

 food supply, and the lack of grazing for their cattle. The migration commenced 

 in April 1911, aad over 200 head of cattle were transferred. In October of the 

 same year the cattle began to die oft', and before the following March 189 in all 

 had died. The owners informed me that, prior to death, the cattle became 

 emaciated, and in some cases the heart was considerably swollen. The general 

 symptoms and course of the disease as described by the natives led one to suspect 

 trypanosomiasis. The natives attributed the deaths to two causes : (1) they say 

 that if cattle eat grass which has been previously cropped by bush-cow, the 

 former inevitably die ; (2) they attributed some of the deaths to a fly which 

 they call Sisafi, and which they describe as slightly larger and darker than a 

 tsetse. They had never caught one of these flies, but gave this opinion from the 

 recollection of those which they had seen on the cattle and which were compared 

 with some specimens of Glossina palpalis which I showed them. Their idea, 

 however, was that these flies sucked all the blood, and the cattle died of anaemia. 

 The connection between the deaths of the cattle on one hand and bush-cow and 

 a blood-sucking insect on the other, in the mind of the native, is, to me, 

 suggestive, when it is remembered that this information was given quite 

 voluntarily and not after a number of leading questions. 



A similar state of affairs to that described above came to my notice at a place 

 called Yiraia Sokurella, also in Koinadugu District. A number of cattle, which 

 were quite healthy when quartered in the town with its surrounding clearing for 

 farms, were transferred to a new cattle compound about a mile from the town. 

 This compound was made in an absolutely new clearing in the bush. In a short 

 time, sickness broke out and soon all had died, while those left in the town were 

 perfectly healthy. 



