Tsetse

tset'se, a South African fly. It is a trifle larger than a house fly. It is brown in color and has four yellow bars across the abdomen. It has somewhat the appearance of a small brown horsefly. It it a terrible pest. Its bite has long been considered fatal to the horse, ox, and dog. Livingstone, the African explorer, lost forty-three oxen in a single trip. As a matter of fact, it has been ascertained that the fly is merely a carrier of disease. Like the malaria-carrying mosquito, it sucks up infection when stinging a diseased animal and introduces the germs when stinging a healthy animal. Its bite has no effect on man, or mules, or on the native wild animals. The difficulty of cultivating fields where oxen and horses cannot be depended upon, and the impossibility of grazing cattle in certain regions, has retarded the settlement of South Africa. There are seven species of the fly. Only one carries the blood parasite. See Fly; Mosquito