TSETSE FLIES 847 



We are now approaching, little by little, the 

 raison d'etre of this chapter. 



I remember a couple of years or so ago per- 

 using in certain Nyasaland and Rhodesian news- 

 papers indignant letters from angry settlers 

 fixing responsibility upon the moderately close 

 proximity of certain game beasts for the presence 

 of tsetse flies, which they not unnaturally re- 

 garded as a standing menace to their cattle 

 and other beasts, although, at that time, in 

 common with the rest of the world, they were 

 unaware of the more serious powers which these 

 insects unsuspectedly wielded. Proposals were 

 set on foot to present petitions to the respective 

 administrations pleading for the immediate 

 wholesale destruction of all game beasts in order 

 that the tsetse fhes, having nothing more to feed 

 upon, might be induced to pass along to some 

 other and farther removed area, leaving the 

 civilised haunts to the European and his indis- 

 pensable instrument the native. About the same 

 time interest in the United Kingdom was 

 stimulated by an ably-conducted controversy 

 which took place in the columns of a leading 

 sporting journal, sustained by that careful 

 observer Sir Alfred Sharpe on the one hand, and 

 Mr. F. C. Selous on the other. The matter in 

 dispute, so far as I remember, affected the 

 question of how far the presence of game in a 

 district was responsible for that of tsetse flies, 

 and to what extent, if any, the removal or 

 extermination of game beasts, in areas in which 

 these insects occurred, would lead in turn to 



