TSETSE FLIES 349 



were to be found in the village gardens, inter- 

 mixing sociably with the goats and fowls. It 

 rather reminded one of the suggestion by Lewis 

 Carroll's walrus of the employment of " seven 

 maids with seven mops." 



Taking as a whole the observations of Dr. 

 Warrington Yorke and other experts, one is 

 irresistibly forced to the conclusion that these 

 gentlemen are one and all unshakably imbued 

 with the firmly-rooted impression that the 

 presence of tsetse flies invariably presupposes 

 the presence of game. You see repeatedly in 

 their Avritings, and in the accounts of their public 

 utterances, such phrases as " Drive back the 

 game," " This fauna is antagonistic to civilisa- 

 tion," " The big game must go," and so on. If 

 this be so ; if this be indeed their firm con- 

 viction, then my opinion, based upon twenty 

 years' observation in fly-infested countries, and 

 supported by that of a number of far more com- 

 petent students of this complex question than I 

 am, is that they are simply beating the air, and 

 advocating, without any proper sense of their 

 responsibilities, measures of the success of which 

 they cannot afford the smallest guarantee. 



With regard to the dependence of these 

 insects upon game, it may be convenient here to 

 mention that, equally with a number of other 

 sportsmen and observers, I am acquainted with 

 enormous fly-belts in Portuguese East Africa, 

 where for many miles tsetse flies are a daily and 

 constant source of annoyance, and have been 

 so for many years, but where there is not the 



