The Zoologist — January, 1873. 3347 



them, his able Editor has reproduced lliem, and I have enjoyed 

 them : why, then, should I hesitate to reprint them for the delecta- 

 tion of my readers ? But I must bid adieu to this warfare between 

 the aggressor and the aborigines, only observing that I fail to see 

 the advantage of making so heavy a bag of rhinoceros. I have more 

 than once been asked the question, when butterfly hunting in the 

 Herefordshire woods, "Are they good to eat?" I would fain ask 

 the rhinoceros-hunter who slays these cumbersome brutes in this 

 wholesale manner, " Are they good to eat ? " but it were to no pur- 

 pose: he has removed to a country whence no answer is returned. 

 Andersson's career, however, is far from being one of indiscriminate 

 slaughter. He paid great attention to Natural History for its own 

 sake, especially to the nesting and migration of birds — attention 

 which is only possible for one who is almost a resident : the con- 

 tinuous observations necessary for this are denied to the hasty 

 traveller who passes rapidly from site to site, from ocean to ocean, 

 well knowing that hereafter he will see each no more : we are, there- 

 fore, especially indebted to a man who has devoted his time and 

 talents to such observations as those which follow. The connection 

 of insect-life with migration, a subject misunderstood or overlooked 

 by our earlier naturalists, is simply and clearly set before us in an 

 admirable passage which cannot be studied too attentively by our 

 rising ornithologists. 



Breeding Season. — " The pairing and breeding season of birds in Damara, 

 Namaqua, and parts adjacent, depends much, if not entirely, on the falling 

 of the rains ; that is, the breeding season is late or early according to late 

 or early rains. From November to May is probably the chief period of 

 incubation; but very many birds pair as early as September: owls, bee- 

 eaters and grouse are amongst the earliest breeders. Near the sea-coast, or 

 j.-ather those portions of it where the periodical rivers have their embouchures, 

 the breeding season is somewhat different, or, perhaps it would be more 

 correct to say, occurs later in the year. The cause is simple : rain rarely or 

 never falls in those parts ; and it is not until long after the rivers (having 

 their sources and origiu in the distant interior) have subsided, that the 

 scanty vegetation recovers from its ' torpor ; ' and with it returns the insect- 

 life, which enables the parent birds to seek and obtain suitable sustenance 

 for their tender broods. The moulting season begins with the return of the 

 wet season. It is during the rainy time of the year that the greatest variety 

 of birds is to be observed ; for, though all but deserts during the dry season, 

 Damara and Namaqua Land, from their peculiar positions, &c., are then a 

 regular paradise to the feathered tribes, the insect- and reptile-life being at 



