PHASES OF NATURE AROUND PRETORIA. 39 



of plant and animal life in the Eastern tropics, the 

 bare, withered, treeless veld as it appears in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Johannesburg and Pretoria at the end of 

 the dry or winter season is most dispiriting. The few 

 thorny acacias are almost universally destitute of leaves, 

 the few plants that should be green are more or less 

 covered with fine brown dust, and the only charm is 

 the clear and invigorating air and the bright blue sky. 

 Insect life is almost absent at this period. The first 

 insect I saw was a large locust with red underwiugs, 

 flying along a road in Pretoria, and chased by clogs who 

 eventually secured it the strangest hunt I ever wit- 

 nessed. At this period, the end of July, five butterflies 

 alone enlivened the scene the ubiquitous Danais 

 chrysippus was the most prevalent, a close ally to our 

 English Clouded Yellow was found in Colias electra 

 with its two forms of the female sex, a small Teriad 

 (Terias brigitta}, the wide-ranging Pieris mescntiua, and 

 last, but not least, an old friend, known in England as 

 the " Painted Lady " (Pyrameis cardui) *. 



A few orthopterous insects are even then found 

 amongst the dried and scanty herbage of a cast-iron 

 soil ; but these are few in number, still few r er in species, 

 and poor in size and colour. The coleopterist now 

 only finds his prey under stones near banks of streams 

 or in other damp places, and it was in such spots that 

 I secured rare species of Cithern us, Tetragonodems, and 

 other good things, besides finding the large earwig 

 (Lapidura riparia] sometimes seen in the south of 

 England. Even these were, however, very scarce, and 

 the searcher for Carabidse must have energy, patience, 

 and experience. The stones must rest in spots neither 

 too dry nor too damp for these small and usually 

 brilliant beetles to seek a shelter beneath them, whilst 

 the labour of turning over the numbers under which 

 nothing is found becomes monotonous and fatiguing. 

 On the dry and hard ground of the more open veld, the 

 removal of a large stone or piece of rock frequently clis- 



* Excluding the Teriad, these butterflies are found all the year round. 



