Its Peculiar Buzz When Once Heard Can Never Be Forgotten
By The Traveler 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 forty-three 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 harmlessness in man and wild animals, and even calves,
so long as they continue 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 fifty yards distant,
contained not a single specimen. This was the more remarkable,
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 proboscis divides, somewhat deeply into the true skin;
it then draws it out a little way, and it assumes a crimson color
as the mandibles come into brisk operation. The previously shrunken belly
swells out, and, if left undisturbed, the fly quietly departs
when it is full. A slight itching irritation follows, but not more
than in the bite of a mosquito. In the ox this same bite produces no more
immediate effects than in man. It does not startle him as the gad-fly does;
but a few days afterward the following symptoms supervene:
the eye and nose begin to run, the coat stares as if the animal were cold,
a swelling appears under the jaw, and sometimes at the navel;
and, though the animal continues to graze, emaciation commences,
accompanied with a peculiar flaccidity of the muscles,
and this proceeds unchecked until, perhaps months afterward,
purging comes on, and the animal, no longer able to graze,
perishes in a state of extreme exhaustion. Those which are in good condition
often perish soon after the bite is inflicted with staggering and blindness,
as if the brain were affected by it. Sudden changes of temperature
produced by falls of rain seem to hasten the progress of the complaint;
but, in general, the emaciation goes on uninterruptedly for months,
and, do what we will, the poor animals perish miserably.
When opened, the cellular tissue on the surface of the body beneath the skin
is seen to be injected with air, as if a quantity of soap-bubbles were
scattered over it, or a dishonest, awkward butcher had been trying to make it
look fat.
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