150 



Notices of Booh. [no. 5, new series, 



The publication of Dr. Livingstone's Discoveries, has rendered 

 it an easier task than usual to name the most important book of 

 the year. The demand for copies has surpassed all experience in 

 works of a similar description. We learn from the English Press 

 that the avidity with which both the mercantile and the reli- 

 gious world have seized upon its information, may be expected, 

 in time, to produce the most gratifying result. It is understood 

 that Dr. Livingstone will depart for Loanda again immediately. 



Of the Tsetse, a venomous fly, we have the following extraordi- 

 nary history. This insect, the Glossina morsiians, " is not much 

 larger than the common house-fly, and is nearly of the same brown 

 colour as the common honey-bee ; the after part of the body has 

 three or four yellow bars across it ; the wings project beyond this 

 part considerably, and it is remarkably alert, avoiding most dex- 

 terously all attempts to capture it with the hand, at common tem- 

 peratures ; in the cool of the mornings and evenings it is less agile. 

 Its peculiar buzz when once heard can never be forgotten by the 

 traveller whose means of locomotion are domestic animals ; for it 

 is well known that the bite of this poisonous insect is certain death 

 to the ox, horse, and dog. In this journey, though we were not 

 aware of any great number having at any time lighted on our cattle, 

 we lost 43 fine oxen by its bite. We watched the animals carefully 

 and believe that not a score of flies were ever upon them. A most 

 remarkable feature in the bite of the tsetse, is its perfect harmless- 

 ness in man and wild animals, and even calves so long as they con- 

 tinue to suck the cows. We never experienced the slightest injury 

 from them ourselves, personally, although we lived two months in 

 their habitat, which was in this case as sharply defined as in many 

 others, for the south bank of the Chobe was infested by them, and 

 the northern bank, where our cattle were placed, only 50 yards 

 distant, contained not a single specimen. This was the more re- 

 markable, as we often saw natives carrying over raw meat to the 

 opposite bank with many tsetse settled upon it. The poison does 

 not seem to be injected by a sting, or by ova placed beneath the 

 skin, for when one is allowed to feed freely on the hand, it is seen 

 to insert the middle prong of three portions, into which the pro- 

 boscis divides, somewhat deeply into the true skin ; it then draws 



