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REPORT ON A SEARCH FOR GLOSSINA ON THE AM ALA 

 (ENGABEI) RIVER, SOUTHERN MASAI RESERVE, EAST 

 AFRICA PROTECTORATE. 



By R. B. Woosnam, 



Game Warden, East Africa Protectorate. 

 (Map.) 



Leaving the Government post on the Amala river, at an altitude of 5,500 feet, 

 on 25th Julv, I moved down the west bank of the river and camped at a 

 spring known as Ol-otu-lomot, at an altitude of 5,200 feet (see accompanying 

 sketch-map). The next day I moved further down the river in search of an 

 old Masai native, by name Ol-botor-ol-joni, who was reported to be familiar 

 with the places in which tsetse-fly (Endorobo of the Masai) was to be found. 

 I found this old man at the place marked on the map and camped there at 

 an altitude of 5,100 feet. 



Mr. R. W. Hemsted, the District Commissioner at the Amala post, had 

 visited this area some time previously and had actually caught flies, which 

 he took to be Glossina, on the Enderrit river (see map), a tiny stream coming- 

 down from the escarpment. The flies were put into an empty match-box, 

 but unfortunately all escaped later. Ol-botor-ol-joni had acted as guide to 

 Mr. Hemsted and on his advice I asked the old man again to act as a guide 

 to the places where tsetse-fly were known to exist by the Masai. Ol-botor- 

 ol-joni's manyatta (village) was placed near two small streams and about 300 

 yards away from the bush which grows along the channels of all the little 

 streams coming down from the escarpment. He owned about 300 cows and 

 oxen and about 500 sheep and goats, and he stated that he and his family, with 

 their cattle, had resided in this district for many years and had come from 

 the Loieta plains to the east of the Amala river. He told me that he knew 

 the tsetse-fly well and that he and the other Masai who lived there know 

 that it sometimes killed cattle, but he said it did no harm to sheep and goats. 

 They knew very well the places where the fly was, as it had always been 

 there, and they did not take the cattle to those places. In very dry seasons 

 if they were obliged to take the cattle to water at places where there was 

 fly, several men went on ahead and made fires on each side of the track which 

 the cattle would have to use in the fly-area, and set fire to as much of the 

 bush and grass as possible, as they said the fly would not bite the cattle 

 among the smoke or when much of the bush had been burnt and dried up. 

 I afterwards saw the remains of numbers of these fires in the fly-areas. 



The Masai also told me that sometimes when they wished to move cattle through 

 a fly-area, they did so at night ; this I doubt, because lions are very numerous 

 throughout these districts and I have never heard of Masai letting their rattle 

 out of the manyatta at night. Besides this, it so happens that in the present 

 case the precaution would not appear likely to be successful. The Glossina in 

 question has been identified by Mr. E. E. Austen as G. fusca^ Walk., and 



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