BETWEEN GAME AND TSETSE-FLIES. 115 
reduced the buffalo to two herds, probably together not reaching a couple of 
hundred individuals. During all this time there seems to have been no perceptible 
general diminution of the fly, though it undoubtedly fluctuated, disappearing 
without apparent cause from some parts of its range, and reappearing in others. 
It certainly existed in very large numbers right up to the outbreak of rinder- 
pest, and in one of the areas buffalo had long ceased to exist, though other kinds 
of game, especially waterbuck, sable antelope and wildebeest, were numerous. 
During the early stages of the rinderpest, that is during the cold weather of 
1896 (the disease having been most likely introduced into the game country by 
the cattle of the farmers coming for the winter grazing), fly was observed to be 
present on the Sabi some miles below my present station. The game was dying 
fast about October, when the fear of fever induced the usual abandonment of the 
low country by Europeans. In the following December, that is to say in the 
height of the hot weather, a low country resident, Mr. Ingle, visited the Sabi 
(where fly had been observed in the previous June), and was surprised to find 
none present. When early in the following healthy season the High Veld 
hunters arrived once more, it soon became apparent that the fly had wholly or 
nearly disappeared from all the low country, having apparently done so between 
October, 1896, and June, 1897. Since the latter year there has been no tsetse 
reported in the Transvaal. That it has really gone is shown clearly, in other 
parts, by the immunity with which domestic animals can be taken into any part 
of the country, while in the district of which I am speaking, I have myself lived 
since 1902 in the middle of one of the old fly-areas, with cattle, horses and 
donkeys, and have probably, at various times, marched through and camped in 
nearly every square mile of the country with my transport. Moreover the five 
white rangers employed by Government, all stationed at different points within 
the district, have been similarly employed at all seasons of the year in pursuance 
of their duties. We have never lost a single animal or seen a fly, and the local 
natives now keep stock where formerly it was impossible. I think it may 
reasonably be concluded therefore, so far as it is possible to speak of anything 
with certainty, that no species of Glossina now exists in the eastern Transvaal. 
The bare rocky hills of the Lebombo Range separate this low country from 
Portuguese territory, and the investigations of the Entomological Department at 
Lourenco Marquez have not shown the presence of any kind of tsetse-fly in the 
southern part of the Province adjoining the Transvaal, though it formerly existed 
there in great numbers. Cattle are also kept by natives on both sides of the 
border. This, I think, precludes the possibility of fly having migrated from the 
Transvaal into the southern part of Mozambique. 
After the rinderpest, it was found that the last of the eland in the North-Kast 
Transvaal had disappeared, and that the buffalo were reduced to a herd of about 
twenty, which remained in the densest part of the Sabi Bush—the heart of the 
former fly country. A small number of kudu and bushbuck survived in the same 
jocality. Impala, wildebeest and other species, native to the district, appeared 
much as formerly. 
It seems to be the case that from some hitherto unexplained cause, tsetse-fly, 
in the north-eastern Transvaal, became quite extinct during the rinderpest. This 
