1S82.] 71 



white snow-flakes. Soon they settle on our sleeres, shoulders, arid back ; and yet one 

 cannot capture them, for they parry every motion of our net aimed at them. They 

 are also very wary when on their favourite flowers — EupJwrbia Gerardiana, Cen- 

 taurea arenaria, Eryngium campestre, and Marruhium peregrinnm. 



They are most easily caught in the vicinity of their nests. If one comes to a 

 place quite destitute of vegetation, where the yellowish -white ground covered with 

 loose sand has in it a hundred or more holes side by side, there is the colony of 

 Bemlex. They place themselves at the mouth of the holes, and with an invisible 

 yet fabulously rapid motion of the feet tlirow the sand backwards, so that it appears 

 as if blown by bellows, and it falls down in the form of a streak about a span wide. 

 Their prey is always a Dipteron. One has here nothing more to do than to scatter 

 the sand with his feet, so that the holes are covered, then the home-comers cannot 

 easily get to their nest and betake themselves to digging. More continue to come 

 home, and soon a whole swarm like snow-flakes flies hither and thither. Now I 

 seize the net, strike rapidly about ten times, swinging it backwards and forwards 

 close to the surface of the ground. By such means the capture does not fail, and it 

 is also announced by the plaintive tones in the net. 



Other species occur, but they cannot be taken in this manner. Here Stizomor- 

 pkus tridens, E., makes its nest, and among them, here and there, the deceptively 

 similar Larra hungariea. Fried. : they can only be captured when sedentary on the 

 ground. Both species always prey on Homoptera and have an entirely similar 

 mode of living. Stizomorphtis tridens occurs in greater number, Larra hungariea 

 only sparely. We stir not hence being in expectation of catching a splendid Chrysid. 

 We look witli watchful eyes on the sand and are happy wlien we see a dark -looking 

 fly approach with slow flight. It alighted on the hole of a Bembex and quickly glided 

 i'". ; it soon returned and sat for some seconds at the mouth of the hole until it was 

 expelled by a returning Bemhex ; then it arose with a heavy flight about a metre 

 higli and settled two or three paces off on the sand. We cautiously approach it 

 with the net but it flew farther away ; fortunately it cared not for further flight but 

 remained still near at hand ; finally we got near enough and were able to throw the 

 net over it. As soon as it felt our fingers it rolled itself up and feigned death. Now 

 we were able to give a glance at it : — it is the $ of the splendid Chrysid Parnopes 

 canieus, Kossi, which is parasitic on Bemhex. Mostly only the ? is obtained ; the 

 <? (which has more abdominal segments) is found earlier on the flowers of Centaurea 

 arenaria and thistles, but is always very scarce. Once, at the end of August, I 

 found a (? in a Bembex nest engaged in pairing. — Peof. Eael Sajo, in Entomol. 

 Nachrichten : January \st, 1882. 



Matabele Land and the Victoria Falls : a Naturalist's Wanderings in 

 the Interior of South Africa. From the letters and journals of the late Feank Oates, 

 F.R.G.S. Edited by C. Gc. Oates, B.A. London, 1881. 



It is only of late years that books of travel have contained more than an 

 occasional passing reference to Natural History, or at least to Entomology ; but at 

 the present day, it is not often we take up one from which some useful information 



