The Breeding Habits of the Tsetse-fly

Abstract

I SHOULD be greatly obliged if you could find space in your columns for the following extracts from a letter which I have received from my friend Dr. A. G. Bagshawe announcing the discovery, I believe for the first time, of the pupæ of the tsetse-fly (Glossina palpalis) in nature. As this species of fly is now known to be the agent which disseminates the infection of sleeping sickness, any discoveries relating to its breeding habits are of the utmost importance from the point of view of devising measures for extirpating the fly or checking its increase. Together with my colleagues Lieuts. Gray and Tulloch, I spent a great deal of time, when I was in Entebbe, in searching for the pupæ of the fly, and we offered the native boys a rupee each for them, but all our efforts to find them in nature were unsuccessful, although captive flies deposited great numbers of pupæ in our cages. I ought, perhaps, to explain at this point that the tsetse-fly is viviparous, and produces a full-grown larva, one at a time; the larva is of a light yellowish tint when born, and wriggles about actively for an hour or so, and then turns in a short time to a dark brown pupa, about the size of a grain of wheat.