BUTTERFLY HUNTING IN NATAL. 125 



very rapidly. The keen eye and quick wrist of the veteran is too 

 much for the victim, despite his doubling dodge ; but less the 

 tails, which have been spoilt by the too eager stroke of the 

 veteran, Ophidiceplialus is, however, safe, and soon impaled : the 

 specimen is not a very good one, and so the loss of the tails is 

 not very lamentable. 



A quarter of an hour more brings us good luck ; we take 

 between us eight fair specimens. I then leave the veteran, 

 whilst I look for the larvae of two or three of the big Saturnia, 

 which occur on the Kaffir-Boom, as also of Cyllo Leda, which 

 feeds on the coarse-ribbed bush- grass forming the undergrowth 

 about here. I am more successful in my hunt than has been the 

 veteran, who on my return has taken no prizes, not having seen a 

 single specimen; but he has added P. Leonidas, several Danais 

 ochlea, and taken a lovely moth, closely allied to our genus 

 Catocala, but much larger, and with a sort of silvery sheen over 

 the scales of the fore wings. I think it is an Opliideres. The 

 specimen is the only one like it I have ever seen, and differs by 

 the black emargination of the under wings on the orange-ground 

 from the ordinary type. 



Having followed the glade along the hill-top, we arrive without 

 any great captures at an old Kaffir garden. Here are Acrceidce 

 and Pier'ulce in plenty. We hence strike the Kaffir path leading 

 down to the river, and have barely left the clearing when a day 

 Saturnia, Apliclia Appolinaris, flutters within the veteran's reach, 

 and is bagged. Several others follow, and we find ourselves in a 

 " school " of them, evidently just emerged from the pupa, and 

 swooping about in a very inexperienced way. Twelve or fourteen 

 specimens are collected very rapidly, three of which are tawny 

 yellow, with the veinings in a violaceous grey ; this is a very 

 usual form of variety. Every brood I have reared has yielded a 

 definite number of the tawny variety ; at first I considered it a 

 sexual difference, but I found on closer examination they were of 

 both sexes. The moth is very delicate and transparent winged 

 when seen in the sunlight. The larva also is conspicuous and 

 handsome, with a slight anal horn, almost approximating Sphinx 

 in type. 



A tortuous path, in which several Geometers and a " Blue " 

 are taken, leads us abruptly to the open face of a grassy and 

 somewhat precipitous hill- side covei'ed with Mimosa scrub. 



