7326 Insects. 



with the honeysuckeis, we discover a store of beetles. In nearly every 

 half-blown blossom we find buried a large green Cetonia, and on 

 proceeding to dissect the flowers we discover at least six other genera, 

 according to the slate of the 6 oral envelopes and receptacle. Ou the 

 leaves of the silver tree and on the various heaths we obtain some 

 Coccinellse and Chilocori. On this day we mate the acquaintance 

 chiefly of the birds, especially of the crow with the white collar, and 

 of the noisy butcher bird. We pick up a small tortoise, and see with 

 a shudder the fatal black form of the sluggish Cape Cobra glide slowly 

 beneath an old root. 



Another day and ground beetles are our game. We select the loose 

 stones at the foot of the mountains, where, in hot and sandy places, we 

 take some Anthiae, some fine large black species and some smaller 

 white-spotted ones. Here also we find Opatruras and other Hetero- 

 mera ; and in the kloff"s and gullies and ravines, in the humid neigh- 

 bourhood of streams and watercourses, Chlsenii, Harpali and Carabi 

 turn up and reward our patient assiduity. The Caffir herdsman 

 regards us on this sultry day with especial wonder, for while he watches 

 his buffaloes browse, crouched motionless under the shadiest bush he 

 can find, lo ! we are toiling in the sun, turning over stones, and after 

 all finding nothing to eat ! The stragglers we met with in this day's 

 cruise are some Cucujus-like customers and Anobiums, under the bark 

 of a hollow tree near the pretty cottage on the hill -side, where we 

 gather delicious mushrooms, we secure a Colymbetes in a cattle pond, 

 detect a Lagria and a Copris promenading a sheep-walk, and by the 

 sides of the sandy road, which is much used by buff'aloes, a large black 

 Ateuchus is observed shoving along balls of dung with his crooked 

 hind legs. 



On the third day we are bound for Miller's Point, along the coast, 

 and our venture is carrion beetles. We pursue an uneven course, up 

 sand hills and down sand dales, until a boulder covered with the 

 trailing stems of the yellow Mesembryanthemum arrests our eye. The 

 green carpet is torn off" from the surface of the stone. Out run the 

 Staphs, and down drop the scorpions, while the nimble yellow cen- 

 tipedes vanish mysteriously with that unpleasant wriggling motion 

 peculiar to Myriapods and Ophidians. 



About two miles to the left of Simon's town we cross a plain, where 

 the grass struggles for existence with the sand, and where the round 

 green gourds of the^Colocynth rest upon the ground, like shot strewing 

 the surface of a battle-field ; a thousand foot-prints of horses stamped 

 in the moist sand (for the ground is used for breaking in horses) 



