Entomological Society. 3823 



gentleman, who informed him that on one occasion he lost forty-nine out of fifty-seven 

 oxen, of which his teams consisted, from the attacks of this insect, and that the inter- 

 val from their being first attacked to their death, varied from three to twelve weeks. 



" ' TsHse. — This fly, which is the same as that found to the eastward of the Lim- 

 popo, infests the country of Sebitoeni, a chief living between the 18th and 15th degrees 

 of South latitude, and the 24th and 28th of East longitude. It is fortunately confined 

 to particular spots, and is never known to shift. The inhabitants herd their cattle at 

 a safe distance from its haunts ; and should they, in changing their cattle-posts, be 

 obliged to pass through tracts of country in which it exists, they choose a moonlight 

 winter's night, as during the nights of the cold weather it does not bite. From what 

 I have seen, I believe that three or four flies will kill a full-grown ox. We examined 

 about twenty of ours which were bitten and died, and the appearances were similar in 

 all. On raising the skin, a glairy appearance of the muscles and flesh (which was 

 much wasted) presented itself. The stomach and intestines healthy ; the heart, lungs 

 and liver, sometimes all, and invariably one or the other, diseased ; the heart in parti- 

 cular attracted our attention, it was no longer a firm muscle, but collapsed readily on 

 compression of its walls, and had the appearance of flesh that had been steeped in 

 water. The blood was greatly diminished in quantity and altered in quality ; not 

 more than twenty pints could be obtained from the largest ox, and that thick and 

 albuminous ; the hands, when plunged into it, came out free of stain. The poison 

 would seem to grow in the blood, and through it to affect the vital organs. All domes- 

 ticated animals, save, I believe, goats, die from the bite of this insect. Calves and 

 sucking animals however are not affected ; and man and all wild animals are bitten 

 with impunity. The symptoms of the bite are swelling of the eyelids and a watery 

 discharge from the eyes, and considerable enlargement of the sublingual glands.' 



" Mr. Oswell's interesting account gives several new and curious particulars rela- 

 tive to the effect of the bite of this insect on the animals attacked by it, not mentioned 

 in Mr. Cumming's ' Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the far Interior of South Africa/ 

 nor in the valuable paper by Mr. Westwood read to the Zoological Society, December 

 10, 1850,* on this species, where it is described as belonging to the genus Glossina of 

 Wiedemann (allied to Stomoxys, but differing in having the proboscis straight, with- 

 out any elbow, and with a round, hairy, bulbous base, possibly, as suggested to Mr. 

 Westwood by Professor Owen, a reservoir of some powerfully poisonous liquid), under 

 the name of Glossina morsitans, Westwood. 



" The specimens now laid before the Society, agree exactly with Mr. Westwood's 

 description." 



Mr. Oswell, who was present as a visitor, gave a detailed and very interesting ac- 

 count of his experience with this African pest, the facts of which are embodied in the 

 foregoing communication. He mentioned however that the fly makes a droning hum, 

 and is so pertinacious in its attacks that it is impossible to drive it away. 



Mr. Spence also called attention to the discovery in the caves of Illyria, of two 

 more species of blind beetles, a printed account of which, by Herr Schmidt, had been 

 sent to him by the author, extracted from the ' Laibacher Zeitung,' August 4, 1852. 



Proceedings,' in the ' Annals of Natural History,' x. 138—150, 



