TSETSE AND THE ZIMB. 
19 
has wings, which are broader than those of a bee, placed 
separate, like those of a fly ; they are of pure gauze, without 
colour or spot upon them. The head is large ; the upper 
jaw or lip is sharp, and has at the end of it a strong pointed 
hair, of about a quarter of an inch long: the lower jaw has 
two of these pointed hairs ; and this pencil of hairs, when 
joined together, makes a resistance to the finger nearly equal 
to a hog’s bristle. Its legs are serrated in the inside, and 
the whole covered with brown hair or down. . . It has no 
sting, though it seems to be rather of the bee kind ; but its 
motion is more rapid and sudden than that of the bee, and 
resembles that of the gad-fly in England. There is some- 
thing peculiar in the sound or buzzing. It is a jarring noise, 
together with a humming, which induces me to believe it 
proceeds, at least in part, from a vibration made with the 
three hairs at his snout.” He thus speaks of the power of 
annoyance possessed by the insect here described : f< As soon 
as this plague appears, and their buzzing is heard, all the 
cattle forsake their food, and run wildly about the plain till 
they die, worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No re- 
medy remains but to leave the black earth [where they 
breed], and hasten down to the sands of Atbara; and there 
they remain while the rains last, this cruel enemy never 
daring to pursue them further. Though his size is immense, 
as is his strength, and his body covered with a thick skin, 
defended with strong hair, yet even the camel is not able to 
sustain the violent punctures the fly makes with his pointed 
proboscis. He must lose no time in removing to the sands of 
Atbara ; for when once attacked by this fly, the body 
and legs break out into large bosses, which swell, break, and 
putrefy, to the certain destruction of the creature. Even the 
elephant and rhinoceros, who, by reason of their enormous 
bulk, and the vast quantity of food and water which they 
daily need, cannot shift to desert or dry places, as the season 
may require, are obliged to roll themselves in mud and mire, 
which, when dry, coats them over like armour, and enables 
them to stand their ground against this winged assassin ; yet 
I have seen some of these tubercles upon almost every ele- 
phant and rhinoceros that I have seen, and attribute them to 
this cause. All the inhabitants of the sea-coast of Melinda, 
down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba, and the south coast of the 
Red Sea, are obliged to put themselves in motion, and remove 
to the next sand, in the beginning of the rainy season, to 
prevent all their stock of cattle from being destroyed. This 
is not a partial emigration : the inhabitants of all the coun- 
tries from the mountains of Abyssinia to the confluence of 
