146 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



law, I have had a permit to walk. But fortunately the Dutch farmers 

 have been interested in my work, and both adults and children have 

 gladly taken bottles of spirits and collected on the farms. I have 

 thus received many interesting specimens of spiders and Solifugae. 

 The farmers are pleased that so many new things have come out of 

 their district, and are eager that it shall hold a front place in the 

 great museum at the capital. A gray-headed old man handed me a 

 bottle of spiders the other day with the remark 'Ik denk Hanover is 

 nou zeker voor' ('I expect Hanover is in front now'), and was much 

 pleased when I told him how well Hanover was holding its own at 

 Cape Town. The school children too, especially the girls, have done 

 well. I have a couple of charming young friends who, in three weeks, 

 sent me over three hundred specimens, some new and of great interest. 



The result of the collecting up to the time of writing is, that, out 

 of over two thousand arachnids I have sent to the museum (and 

 excluding some spiders still undetermined), Dr. Purcell has found 

 some twenty-one families of spiders, comprising more than a hundred 

 species (the great majority of which are new to science), some ten 

 species of Solifugae (several of which are also new to science), four 

 species of scorpions and one pseudo-scorpion. 



One can not speak with any certainty yet, but it would almost 

 seem that the high plateau has, largely, its own peculiar arachnid 

 fauna, which, if it be so, is a very interesting fact. 



But the interest does not lie wholly in the finding of an apparently 

 new fauna and many new species of very rare genera; it is perhaps 

 greatest in connection with what has been learned concerning spiders 

 whose habits were thought to be known. 



Before passing on to the arachnids, one or two interesting finds 

 in other orders may be noted. 



Among snakes, a small rare species (Prosymna sundevalli) 

 speckled, handsome and non-poisonous is remarkable as having a 

 hard snout for burrowing into the ground. Another snake is inter- 

 esting from the manner of its capture. I was reading one evening 

 inside the house and my wife was walking up and down the stoep 

 after the heat of the day, when I heard her call anxiously. I went 

 out and found the snake, which I killed two feet from our open door, 

 for which it was making. A beautiful family are the Kous slangen 

 (garter-snakes). They are very poisonous, but fortunately they are 

 smallish and have very small teeth. The best specimen of these snakes 

 I have caught is perhaps the most beautiful of them all. It is circled 

 throughout its whole length with alternate bright red and deep black 

 bands about half an inch wide. I nearly trod on it, and was warned 

 by the most violent short hisses. I looked down at my feet, and 

 there, standing up on a red iron-stone, was this enraged and lovely 



