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tropical grandeur ; but the floods of rain ttat were falling did not 

 prevail with the steamer's captain to postpone for a little the disem- 

 barking of his Natal passengers, — a process of extreme simplicity in 

 that part of the world. It must be understood that the steamer lies 

 outside in the open ocean, and that a clumsy cargo-boat comes out to 

 her, across the bar, from the inner anchorage. Into this cargo-boat 

 the passengers, with their baggage, are graciously allowed to drop or 

 scramble, as well as the long rollers of the Indian Ocean will admit of 

 their doing. This accomplished, away goes the steamer (if, as usual, 

 late with the mails) for Mauritius or Port Elizabeth, as the case may 

 be, and the boat, with its forlorn human freight, flounders and wobbles 

 through the waves, and risks the dangers of the bar, before terra Jirma 

 can be reached. 



But it is not my object to dilate upon these incidents of travel, 

 and I will accordingly proceed to give some account of my impressions 

 of the entomological aspect of Nature in Natal. And first, let me de- 

 scribe a winter's day at Port Natal itself. 



The reader, then, will be pleased to imagine himself with me in 

 the Botanic Gardens at Port Natal, a spot where an entomologist might 

 profitably spend a lifetime. Let no one imagine this to be a trim and 

 ordered garden such as he is accustomed to see in Europe. Erom the 

 dense forest which clothes the long, low hill-range of the " Berea," en- 

 circling the greater part of the lagoon, a limited space has been 

 gradually won by sheer labour of fire and steel. The principal native 

 trees have wisely been left standing in situ, and interspersed among 

 them are trees, shrubs, and flowers, not merely from the adjacent 

 regions of Africa, but from all the warmer parts of the world. The 

 dark back-ground of forest shuts in the garden on the north and west, 

 a road skirting the southern side ; but eastward one looks from the 

 highest part of the slope, over a wide view of the lagoon, the town of 

 D'Urban, and the open sea beyond. Here, then, we must suppose 

 ourselves stationed, about 7 a.m., fronting the newly-risen sun, which 

 is dispersing the mists that still cling to the wooded hiUs. The silence 

 of the morning is only broken by the voices of birds, and the occasional 

 distant shouts of Kafirs going to work. Insect life is yet perfectly 

 dormant ; the nocturnal tribes have retired, and those that love the day 

 are not yet aroused. It is in vain that one examines leaves and 

 flowers, or beats the branches of trees just at this time ; there seem to 

 be no insects alive. An hour passes, and by this time the sun is at 

 some altitude, and his rays begin to penetrate the trees and under- 

 growth. You turn from looking at the sun, and lo ! diurnal insect life 



