284 
POISONOUS INSECTS 
insects is the dread tsetse-fly. This insect resembles a large horsefly, 
and is death to horses and some other varieties of stock. In fact, it is 
impossible to use cattle, horses or dogs in the badly infested districts. 
But the ravages of the tsetse-fly do not stop here, bad as they are. 
It is known as the Glossina palpalis to the naturalist and as the bearer 
of the dread “sleeping disease." Carrying this deadly sickness from 
one person to another by means of its bite, it is responsible for the 
deaths of more than a hundred thousand natives in Uganda alone, and 
even Europeans cannot consider themselves immune. The disease is 
confined to the fly-infested belts, which extend over wide areas. In 
the interior of Usoga, on the banks of many rivers, in swamps on the 
shores of numerous lakes, great swarms of these emissaries of death 
are to be found. One person afflicted with the disease can in this way 
communicate it to countless thousands. Whole villages have been 
completely exterminated and the lake shores and river banks bid fair 
to be entirely depopulated. Great tracts in Usoga which had formerly 
been famed for their high state of cultivation relapsed into forests. 
The weakness of the victims and the terror of the survivors permitted 
a sudden and great increase in the number of leopards and added 
another scourge to the stricken people. By the end of 1905 more than 
two hundred thousand persons out of a population in thos& regions, 
which could not have exceeded three hundred thousand, had perished . 
But hope is now being extended by the scientists that this 
death-dealing scourge may be exterminated. The disease may be 
curable or the isolation of patients may prevent its being carried to 
those in health. Whenever possible, the fly is being banished by cut¬ 
ting down trees and clearing away the brush. All the powers of the 
government are exerted toward putting an end to this horror and the 
reign of terror. Scientists bend over their microscopes, international 
boards of great physicians discuss the subject about long tables. Some 
day, somehow, the tsetse-fly and the sleeping sickness will be banished 
forever. 
The Mosquito. —With the approach of twilight comes the 
mosquito, strident-voiced and fever-bearing; and the most thorough 
precautions must be taken against him and other insect dangers. The 
traveler and sportsman lives in a large mosquito-house made entirely 
