6g 
‘ We are told that the tsetse of South Africa depend upon game 
for a living : it is true that science does not yet know for certain that 
this fly can obtain a living on anything but blood. Many other biting 
flies can maintain a vegetarian existence for a time at least, and the 
circumstantial evidence is certainly strong that the genus Glossina 
can do the same. In what other way can be explained the not 
infrequent occurrence of districts uninhabited by man and in which 
game, spoor or even the ordinary indications which go to make a 
“ game country ” are wanting, yet in which tsetse abound in their 
thousands, congregating around the traveller and his carriers in 
numbers impossible to ward off ? An estimation of the odds against 
any one of these flies obtaining a meal of mammalian blood in the 
course of a year would indeed be work for a statistician. Further, 
there are districts and large areas wherein game of all local varieties 
is plentiful and in which no tsetse can be found. What explanation 
can be offered? Only that, like any other being, the members of 
the genus Glossina have their likes and dislikes, and select for a 
home a locality suitable according to their tastes. Even amongst the 
members there is individualism, for one species — Gl. palpalis —will 
not live away from the immediate vicinity of water ; and only such 
water, too, as is open, and is bounded by defined banks which carry 
a sufficiency of timber or scrub to provide him with the necessary 
amount of shade. As every traveller in Northern Rhodesia knows, 
the tsetse fly of that country—6^/. morsitans — does not make a point 
of these conditions ; but it does insist on shade, preferably that 
furnished by the half-grown trees which constitute the virgin bush, 
the ground between which is covered with grass, smaller trees or 
scrub. It does not live on an open flat, dambo or vlei, and it is 
quite patent that the presence of water is secondary in its estimation. 
From this it is obvious that there is much truth in Mr. Dunbar’s 
suggestion that local variations in the tsetses may account for some of 
the discrepancies in the accounts given by various writers, for he, in 
turn, introduces another species of tsetse into the argument. 
Gl. fusca, the large species to which he refers, has been shown to 
exist at both the North and South ends of Lake Nyassa ; its haunts 
and habits are not well known, but there is some indication that it 
favours similar country to Gl. palpalis, i.e., water and shady banks. 
As some species of game undoubtedly confine themselves to certain 
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