SAND-MOLE. 241 



undermining the parterres, and consuming the roots of 

 the flowers. I saw several unfortunates just dug out of 

 their burrows by a little negro boy, who informed me 

 that he was employed by a certain old gentleman, owner 

 of a garden in the neighbourhood, to destroy these depre- 

 dators at so much per head. Although called Zandmott 

 by the colonists, it is a true Rodent, but lives under 

 ground, and raises hillocks like the Mole of Europe, or 

 the Tucotuco (Ctenomys Brasiliensis} of South America. 

 Like that little animal, also, it renders the ground in 

 some parts, unsafe for horses, owing to the long loose 

 subterranean galleries it forms in the sand. Although 

 furnished with very minute eyes, the Tucotuco is not ab- 

 solutely blind, as Darwin affirms it to be. They very soon 

 die in captivity, like the common Mole, which I could 

 never succeed in keeping alive for any length of time. 

 The skeleton of the Bathyergits reminds one somewhat of 

 that gigantic extinct quadruped the Megatherium, but 

 of course on a diminutive scale. 



A large species of Ateuchm, a kind of Beetle, is com- 

 mon in the sandy roads about the Cape. You will see it, 

 frequently, like Sisyphus, rolling a huge round ball of 

 dung up a bank, by placing its hind legs against it, and 

 moving backwards. It frequently happens, that the ball 

 which contains the eggs rolls to the bottom, when the 

 poor patient Beetle begins its toilsome labour over again. 



" adverse nixaiitem trudere monte 



Saxum ; quod tamen a summo jam vertice rursum 

 Volvitur, et plani raptim petit aequora campi." * 



* Lucret. lib. iii. ver. 1013. 

 VOL. II. R 



