124 A NATURALIST IN THE TRANSVAAJ,. 



Ethiopian fauna. Subtropical Durban could thus 

 become a tropical training-ground for the exploring 

 naturalist, who would be able to develop that simplicity 

 in requirements and acquire that amplitude and method 

 in observation which are so often more laboriously learned 

 at the cost of missed opportunities when he reaches the 

 interior. There is a lore in collecting natural objects 

 which can only be acquired by practice, for until the 

 habits and haunts of animals are understood they will 

 not be searched for in the right spots, and necessarily 

 will not therefore be found. A traveller often passes over 

 a rich and unexplored zoological region which he only 

 samples through having had no preparatory training as 

 might for Southern Africa be obtained at Durban. But, 

 of far more importance, the power of observation is 

 quickened by an early appreciation of what and how to 

 observe, so that the capture of an animal will soon 

 become of less importance than a knowledge of its 

 relation to its environment. I could not help contrasting 

 the different mental conceptions which dominated me 

 when collecting in the Malay Peninsula twenty-two 

 years previously and those which now occupied my 

 mind in a similar quest at Durban. Then almost the 

 sole aim was the discovery of new species ; now the 

 constant wish was to make some small discovery to add 

 to the ever-increasing knowledge of how animals derived 

 their present shape and coloration in the struggle for 

 existence. These pleasant Durban glades, where insect- 

 life so freely exhibited itself, were now no longer only 

 emporiums to supply museum drawers with specimens, 

 but were full of nature's records of the past like hiero- 

 glyphic writings, but unlike them, most at present we 

 cannot read. It was now the cult of Darwin that 

 seemed wafted in the air, and I felt like an eclectic 

 Pagan finding a shrine to philosophy amidst these 

 African groves. 



It was on a Christmas day that Vasco da Gama 

 reached and named Natal, at the height of summer and 

 amidst the glories of a vegetation as I now saw it. 

 Although four hundred years have elapsed since that 



