BUTTERFLY HUNTING IN NATAL. 65 



an old patch of garden, which we are approaching ; and here also we 

 first see the black unspotted male of Nymphalis Ethalion, but high 

 on the wing, and too lively to be taken, except at rest, by a twenty 

 feet sweep, although we try it ; but the hot sun and the manifest 

 disinclination to be approached, leave him master of the situation. 

 We are now pretty well up the hill, and after breasting the next 

 hundred yards we come to "my" corner, protected from the north- 

 east and east, the prevalent direction of the mid-day breeze. It 

 is open to the west and south, and commands a most extended 

 view, in which is seen Table Mount ; near Maritzburg, on a clear 

 evening, by sunset light, the Umgeni Gorges and the Inanda Hills 

 are the distant features ; and broken bits of sugar plantations, bush 

 clearing, wooded hills, and grass-land with scattered Mimosa, 

 form the chief features of the mid-distance and foreground. At 

 our back is the " break-wind " we have come up, whilst to our 

 right is an old fruit garden hard by, and a patch of heavy brush 

 on the other side, through which we shall descend the hill. On our 

 left still remains the open clearing, equally weed-grown, and now 

 yielding up from an infinity of inconspicuous flowers, as it 

 shimmers in the mid-day heat, a hum of insects, a flutter of flies, 

 and a scent of honey and musk combined, which induces a sense 

 of "Dolce far niente," and a desire to halt in the shade protected 

 from the sun, and get a little cool after the fatigue of ascent, 

 catching as much of the sea breeze as the " break-wind," up which 

 we have reached this spot, allows to percolate through. 



Casting my eye towards a certain " flat crown," in a quiet 

 corner, I am gratified by seeing my constant friend and habitue 

 of this spot, Pseudacraa Tarquinia, floating and circling lazily 

 around, with its mimic, Ac7'(sa Aganice, and Danais Echeria, all 

 together. I call the attention of the veteran to the three, and he is 

 puzzled to make them out. Echeria is soon captured. The 

 others remain out of reach, and despite challenges with bits of 

 projectile launched at them, seem about to escape us, when a 

 Pieris Cleodora dashing past P. Tarquinia, and diving down from 

 the heights above to the fields below, upsets the equanimity of 

 our habitue, who follows him, and, alas, before he can return, is 

 benetted and impaled by the veteran with great content ; mean- 

 while Cleodora becomes mine. Here, also, the heavy and 

 gorgeous moth, EgyhoUa vaillantbia, although we have seen him 

 before, first comes within range ; and almost at the same moment 



