CO885-(21-23) — Page 546

PUBLIC RECORD

OFFICE

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Reference :-

LLICO. 885

22 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC= || COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

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investigation into the bionomics of any species might well be begun by further investigation of Glossina palpalis in Uganda. The opportunities afforded there are well nigh unique. The large number of islands, more or less favourable to rapid increase, separated by sufficient widths of water to preclude free passage of the flies in their ordinary goings and comings, offer opportunities which could not well be improved upon.

This working hypothesis has been formulated concerning the bionomical history of Glossina palpalis in this region out of not very much material. It needs strengthening, and the soundness of its foundations must be tested before attempting to use it as an aid to the study of Glossina morsitans, or any other race or species.

The following questions ought, all of them, to be answered in the affirmative if the hypothesis is sound :-

(1) Do the females of Glossina palpalis migrate from the islands, leaving the

males at the old breeding ground?

(2) Is the proportion of females migrating directly governed by the abundance

of the fly?

(3) Do the females reach the shore?

An affirmative answer to these questions would make it highly probable that many other things guessed but not proven of Glossina palpalis were really true. Some of them would certainly apply to Glossina morsitans; others might not. But, with the truth known about palpalis, it requires only a comparatively small amount of work to determine whether morsitans agrees with or differs from its congener, as the different phases in its bionomy are taken up one by one.

The big questions to be answered are, of course, composed of a great many little questions. Some of these are directly suggested by the points of difference between palpalis and morsitans in the parallel columns. If the following be considered to be the main objective points, bionomically speaking, the investigation cannot go far wrong:-

(1) What constant point of difference will serve to separate favourable from

unfavourable breeding grounds?

(2) What other points of difference, of whatsoever character, are discernible when favourable and unfavourable grounds are compared, and how may these react on the fly?

(3) What are the migratory movements of the fly?

Perhaps, as an entomologist, the writer unduly and not unnaturally exaggerates the importance of bionomic entomology in questions of this general character, in which so many other elements enter.

He nevertheless maintains that infestation of a locality by fly is no more evidence that the fly does or can breed there than infestation of a bed chamber by mosquitoes is evidence that they all came from the rain-water barrel under the window. They may have come from the barrel-they may have come from a marsh on the other side of a river. In any event, until the matter is investigated with some thoroughness, considerable doubt exists as to whether the marsh should be drained, or the house screened, or a cover provided for the barrel. June, 1913.

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out of which more or less isolated clearings, locally termed " farms," are from time to time nicked by a native population which is sparse when compared with the area which it inhabits. In some localities, where the cocoa industry has been seriously engaged in by the natives, the clearings are more extensive and more nearly continuous; but by far the greater part of the Colony and of Ashanti is under heavy forest, much of which is rarely, if ever, visited by human beings. While this state of things continues, I see very little reason to fear the extinction of wild life, as the area through which birds and beasts can roam without danger of molestation is very great, and the native hunters are poorly armed. It is the experience of European sportsmen that they find in this Colony little to repay them for their labours, and this, I think, is to be attributed not so much to the paucity of animal life, as to the inaccessible nature of the favourite haunts of bird and beast alike, and the difficulty of detecting the presence of game in such thick cover.

3. Having regard, moreover, to the very slender administrative machinery which we possess, and the many more immediately important duties which, in exist- ing circumstances, that machinery is able only very imperfectly to perform, I am reluctant to see any action taken which would tend to interfere with the every-day life of the bush native, and would produce no results of a really tangible character, beyond occasionally leading to the prosecution of an individual who had had the ill- fortune to be detected in the commission of an act which the publication of a docu- ment in the Government " Gazette "had transformed into a misdemeanour.

21508

SIR,

No. 39.

I have, &c.,

HUGH CLIFFORD,

Governor.

EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE..

THE SECRETARY OF STATE to THE GOVERNOR. [Answered by No. 47.]

(No. 543.)

Downing Street, 8 July, 1913.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch, No. 402, of the 27th May, 1913, transmitting copies of "The Game Amendment Ordinance, 1913," and in reply to inform you that before tendering any advice to His Majesty in regard to the Ordinance I should be glad to receive some further information as to the necessity for its enactment. I am not aware that there is any reason to suppose that the numbers of lion and cheetah in the remöter parts of the Protectorate have unduly diminished.

26833

No. 40.

I have, &c.,

L. HARCOURT.

(No. 379.)

SIR,

No. 38.

GOLD COAST.

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 7 July, 1913.)

Government House, Accra, 16th June, 1913.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch, No. 148, of the 11th March last,* on the subject of game preservation in this Colony.

2. This Colony is, as you are aware, with the exception of a few districts near the coast, parts of the Volta Valley, and the Northern Territories, one vast forest.

}

• No. 12.

(No. 549.)

SIR,

EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE.

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 4 August, 1913.)

Government House, Nairobi,

British East Africa, July 11th, 1913.

WITH reference to my despatch No. 481 of 10th July of last year, I have the honour to transmit herewith in duplicate the Returns of Game killed in the East Africa Protectorate during the year 1912-13.

• No. 35.

I have, &c.,

C. C. BOWRING,

In the absence of the Governor.

† No. 31 in [Cd. 6671].

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