142 WAYFARING NOTES IN RHODESIA. 



enriching it with their secretions, these creatures generate a large 

 amount of heat, and upon a sharp cold morning one may distinctly 

 feel a current of hot air ascending if the hand be placed over the 

 top of one of the chimney -like vents which are raised upon the 

 surface of the main mound. 



As to fertilization. Butterflies carry out some of this work, 

 but I should judge the largest share is carried out by beetles, which 

 are extraordinarily abundant and of many species. Ants too, I 

 think, carry out a fair share, and in some Asclepiads their tastes 

 appear to be specially catered for. 



As to colours. Varied as the flowers are in colour, there was 

 nevertheless among such flowers as I saw blooming in December a 

 noticeable preponderance of yellows and wdiites. 



Whether locusts have modified the flora of Africa to any extent 

 is a question that must occur to one who sees them in swarm. 

 They ravage year after year, and it is marvellous how so much 

 escapes them. Certainly they swarm in the dry season, when 

 flowering is mostly over. It is said they are apt to be less 

 troublesome after a very wet rainy season. Possibly the thorns 

 which are so prevalent in many African plants may serve as a 

 protection against locusts, as well as against the huDger of ante- 

 lopes and the like. 



In Ehodesia there are roughly only tAVO seasons, the wet and 

 the dry ; the wet constituting summer, the dry winter. The rains 

 come on by degrees, commencing usually about the end of October, 

 the showers increasing in extent on until February, when they tail 

 off again, ending about April. But there is great variation in this 

 regard, some rainy seasons being much wetter than others. In 

 April the nights are getting much cooler, and by May and June 

 one may see a thin coating of ice upon water left standing out in a 

 pail all night. The early spring flowers come up before the first 

 rains. Some of the trees throw out their new foliage in advance of 

 the rains, notably the masam, previously referred to. 



In so rapid a run through the country one can only get a very 

 general impression, but members of the following natural orders 

 were noticeably abundant : — LeguminoscB, Cucurbitacea, Malvncem, 

 Convolvulacea, AsclepiadacecB, LiliacecB, AmaryllidecB, and Iridea. 

 The Asclepiads showed an astonishing variety of forms. Fungi of 

 many species were abundant. 



The journey from Bulawayo to Salisbury was made early in 

 December, and on the road one saw large numbers of a species of 

 Brunsvujia, its bulb large as a man's head, and standing partly out 

 of the ground. Its leaves are arranged like an opened fan, the 

 scape jutting out at one side, and crowned with a large umbel. 

 Earlier in the year, when the flowers first appear, they are deep 

 cherry-red in colour ; but in December the long, rigid, dried ovaries, 

 crowned by the dried-up perianth as plume, form a globular mass 

 of spokes often as much as two feet in diameter. Later on, the 

 the upper portion of the ovaries is expanded flange-fashion, and so 

 forms so many wind-vanes. Early in December, as I passed these 

 plants, all sail was set, but the umbels were still firmly attached to 



