Observations relating to the transmission of sleeping sickness in Uganda, the distribution and bionomics of Glossina palpalis, and to clearing measures / by Aubrey D.P. Hodges.

Hodges, Aubrey Dallas Percival, 1861-1946.

Date:: 1909

Credit: Observations relating to the transmission of sleeping sickness in Uganda, the distribution and bionomics of Glossina palpalis, and to clearing measures / by Aubrey D.P. Hodges. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$Til each case the pupae were aggregated under an *Allophullua shruli. It may be that when this shruli occurs near water where G. palpalvi exist the ])hysical conditions occasioned by it are eminently favourable for breeding. Should this be so the extermination of AllophyliuH in ily areas might have the same effect as an extensive clearing. fMore observations are, of course, needed. The shrub is well known to the Banyoro and Batoro as mutetc, and I am informed by my interpreter that the Luganda name is the same. It is used everywhere for making fire by friction and for walking sticks. There is more than one species. All have leaves of three leaflets, minute white flowers and globular seed-vessels smaller than peas and usually in pairs. Some dried leaves are enclosed. The Officer in charge of the Botanical Department would point out living shrubs in or near Entebbe. MARCH, 1907. I landed to-day on the Unyoro side of the Victoria Nile at a point below I^ijumbura where was a small patch of jungle at the river’s edge. It consisted of two clumps of wild date palm, witli shrubs and creepers. Glossina palpalis was seen very soon, and in the course of aii hour (9.30- 10.30 a.m.) there were caught 9 male and 2 female; no other species of Glossina was taken. I searched for pupae around the palm stems where the soil was heaped-up dry and crumbly, and mixed with debris of fronds and leaf bases. There were found thirty empty and one full pupa. This observation is perhaps of importance for the wild-date palm, “ Makindu ” {Phoenix reclinata) is common round the Victoria Lake. APRIL, 1907. Pupae.—I had meant to work on this subject at Foweira in the intervals of flight experiments but the weather was too unfavourable. When the ground is wet the earth sticks to the fingers and the search becomes difficult as well as unpleasant. Near the JKaruma falls pupae were found chiefly in two situations:— (a) There were found about and within the buttress and flying buttress roots of a large fig, eight yards from the river and ten feet above it nineteen shells—on the surface a Glossina p)alpalis hatched out, its proboscis still folded beneath it. (b) Among rocks close to water and three feet above it in the dense shade of a fig covered with creepers were found twenty-two shells. Another day man} shells and three full pupae were found on a steep wooded bank much above the water, twenty feet or more. * A genus of O. Sapindaceae widely distributed in Africa. Mr. Edmund Baker of the Natural History Museum informs me that at least thirty-seven species from lix))>ical Africa have been described. t Another possible explanation occurs to me. At the time of my visit many shrubs bad shed their leaves, thereby avoiding the loss of v ater by evaporation due to the gieat sun- heat in the rainless season. On otheis the leaves hung down, shrivelled and to all appear- ance lifeless. Allophplltis seemed unafTected by the seasonal conditions and gave much denser shade than other shrubs. This being so, pregnant females might choose the shade of AUnphyllns for the deposit of their larvae during the dry season. Observations in the wet season would decide this point. X It wa.s here that Speke crossed the Victoria Nile. The falls are figured in his book, Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the HUe, 1863, p. 568,$