BETWEEN GAME AND TSETSE-FLIES. 117 
ourselves and our natives after sundown. I collected several of the flies from 
each belt, and handed them over to the Entomological Department at Lourenco 
Marquez, where Mr. C. W. Howard ultimately pronounced them to be Glossina 
morsitans. 
Now as regards the almost complete absence of game. Since it was the driest 
time of the year, and the Msalu and Lujenda are both of them perennial streams, 
one would have expected to find indications of game in their vicinity, if anywhere. 
But though my companion, Mr. R. C. F. Maugham and myself, having a large 
number of carriers to feed, hunted assiduously in the most likely spots on every 
possible occasion, we were entirely unsuccessful in finding even old tracks dating 
from the last rains. Although game often temporarily migrates from a country, 
I scarcely think it could ever have been very numerous along the route we took. 
The character of the vegetation was not such as finds most favour with antelopes 
generally, and during our constant examinations of the sand-beds of the dry 
watercourses, I do not think it would have been possible to help noticing indica- 
tions of the recent presence of wild animals in any numbers. Nor, in view of the 
fact that nearly every adult native we met was in possession of firearms of some 
description, did there appear any particular reason for doubting their statement 
that they had shot out most of such game as had existed in the country, long 
before. Certainly the swarms of G. morsitans which we encountered must have 
been hard pressed by hunger if forced to depend for their existence upon the 
blood of a few stray herds of the larger species which may have existed. It was 
noticeable that the fly was most in evidence near the camping and halting places. 
The route which we followed is the usual one from the interior. — It is, in fact, the 
old slave caravan road, and at the present time, or at least three years ago, 
natives were accustomed to make use of it only in very large parties, owing to 
their fear of the predatory bands of the independent Yao chiefs, which were 
always on the look out to snap up solitary travellers and small detachments. 
The fly-belts themselves are thinly populated, and the natives kept no stock 
except a few rather anemic-looking goats. The fly was not much in evidence in 
the clearings round the villages. 
In the fly-areas, as in all the country we passed through, the vegetation was 
remarkable for the total absence of thorn acacias. Except near the watercourses 
it was stunted, and the trees included such forms as Brachystegia pectinata, Rhus 
longifolia, Eugenia guineensis, Combretum microphyllum, and Afzelia. There was 
a good deal of long thick grass, and in places, much dense undergrowth. I think 
the fly was always thickest about the dry stream beds. These were the ordinary 
caravan halting places, water being obtained in occasional small pools or by 
digging. I-saw a lot of fly at one halting place where a narrow swampy stream 
trickled through mud and long grass. Dry bush, in this and every other case, 
grew near at hand. A few stray flies only were noticed on the right bank of the 
Msalu River, but as soon as we crossed we had practical proof of their presence 
in large numbers, and this continued through nearly all the bush country to about 
two miles from the Lujenda, where cultivation seemed to stop them quite 
suddenly. A Portuguese officer said that in places they came quite close down 
to the Lujenda, where there was bush and no cultivation. 
20419 C 
