64 Captain G. E. Shelley's Three Months 



at Port Elizabeth^ whichj though by no means a promising 

 place to look at, is fairly well stocked with birds and insects, 

 especially along the small water-courses. Here the Cape 

 fauna is exhibited in Buteo jackal, Laniarius gutturalis, and 

 Amydrus morio, species which I never saw near Durban. On 

 the 23rd of February I arrived at Port Natal, and, after wast- 

 ing two days in getting my guns and ammunition through 

 the custom-house, began work : of course days wasted, though 

 reckoned as of little importance by others, are most grudg- 

 ingly granted by the naturalist, who feels that each day lost 

 is the loss of some species which he may never again have 

 the chance of seeing in its native wilds. The first sight of 

 Natal after a stay at the Cape is very cheering ; the dense 

 bush which lines the shore extends in an almost unbroken 

 belt, some twenty miles in width, as far as Delagoa Bay east- 

 ward, while towards the Cape of Good Hope the land becomes 

 more open as one approaches the mouth of St. John's River 

 and East London. 



Port Natal, where we disembarked, was, when I landed, 

 literally swarming with insect life, the air being full of fine 

 beetles and gaily coloured butterflies. Durban is situated at 

 about three miles from the Port, on Natal Point, on the shore 

 of the large bay, which, owing to its narrow outlet and the 

 shallow marshy nature of some parts of the sides, has much 

 the appearance of a salt lake, and is frequented by numerous 

 Waders. On the other side Durban is surrounded by an 

 open, rushy flat, bounded by a low thickly wooded range of 

 hills, called the Berea, whence I collected a variety of birds 

 and a great number of butterflies ; unfortunately the former 

 were rarely in good plumage at the season of my visit, though 

 some of them were breeding at the time. 



Whilst in the neighbourhood of Durban, from the 25th of 

 February to the 13th of April, I made the following notes 

 upon the birds I there observed. I shall add to the list those 

 species which I met with during my stay in Cape Colony, as 

 I have yet some few additional notes to make to the prece- 

 ding rambling portion of my journal, and which may be entered 

 shortly in the following list : — 



