PHASES OF NATURE AROUND PRETORIA. 61 



recorded other fatalities from all sides. In February the 

 bridge at the Six-mile Spruit was washed away, and all 

 that month and during March fatalities to life and loss of 

 property were of intermittent record. Outside the Re- 

 public the weather was equally bad; from Natal we heard 

 that at Umbilo many Indian huts were destroyed and the 

 Indians had to take refuge in trees, whilst in Durban 

 itself we learned that at the end of one week in March 

 for forty-eight hours there had been an exceptionally 

 heavy fall of rain, the heaviest for twenty years. On 

 the Sunday the people were practically weather-bound. 

 There were no services in the churches in the morning, 

 the streets and tram-lines were seriously damaged and 

 the Berea tram-traffic was partly stopped. Perhaps the 

 most vivid illustration of the effects of these river-floods 

 in South Africa was obtained from Uitenhage, where one 

 noon, whilst the Sunday river was rushing down with 

 terrific force, the spectators on the bank observed in 

 midstream a cart with two horses harnessed to it, dead, 

 and dragging behind, as if fastened to the conveyance, 

 was the body of a white man, which none could recog- 

 nize as the ghastly flotsam sped swiftly to the sea. The 

 last fall of rain before the dry season commenced 

 occurred at Pretoria on May 12. 



Flying all the year round is the ubiquitous butterfly 

 Danais chrysippus, which is found over the whole of 

 Africa, in South-eastern Europe, and generally dis- 

 tributed throughout Asia. 1). chrysippus is also 

 possessed of distasteful qualities which render it un- 

 palatable to the usual insectivorous enemies, and thus 

 affords an instance of a thoroughly "protected" butterfly. 

 Its bright colour and slow flight show that it is subject 

 to no fear of attack, or in the struggle for existence to 

 which all living things have been and are, in a less 

 degree, still engaged, this appearance and habit would 

 have proved positive dangers to its long survival. It is 

 not attacked by birds or other insectivorous animals, 

 and is absolutely refused by them as food when kept in 

 captivity. It is wonderfully tenacious of life, and 

 specimens, after being pinched and pinned, have been 

 seen, on the pins being withdrawn, to fly off in a 



