2312 The Zoologist. — October, 1870, 



again. On the third day we proceeded to Millar's Point along the coast, 

 and the special object of our mission was (start not, gentle reader) carrion 

 beetles ! We pursued an uneven course up sand-hills and down 

 sand-dales until we espied a huge boulder rock covered with the 

 trailing stems and fleshy leaves of the yellow Mesembryanthemura, or 

 fig-marigold. The green carpet was torn off from the surface of the 

 stone, when out ran the rove-beetles, large-eyed, burrowing and broad- 

 bodied. At the same time the little pale scorpions dropped down, 

 while the nimble yellow centipedes vanished mysteriously, with that 

 unpleasant wriggling movement peculiar to hundred-legs and snakes. 

 " About two miles to the left of Simon's Town we crossed a plain 

 where the grass struggled for existence with the sand, and where the 

 round green gourds of the colocynth rested 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) heightened the resemblance. On a sudden a taint in the pure 

 air offended our nostrils, but we knew what it meant, and, like the 

 vulture to his carrion meal, we were led by the nose to the carcase of 

 a sheep ; Placing our nobility to windward we capsized the defunct 

 mutton, and those useful scavengers of nature, the burying beetles 

 and the carrion beetles rewarded our bold adventure." — P. 34. 



In the same favoured and favourite locality, or very near it, we 

 pause to learn something of the fish, but even the fish seem to have 

 been as attractive to beetles as beetles were to our author : he does 

 not indeed mention the species, but it must have been one of the 

 genus Brachinus. 



" On our return we descended the sand-hills near the sea, and by 

 the 'ancient and fish-like smell ' we became aware of the vicinity of a 

 station for cleaning and drying fish. Here were fish galore. Fish 

 salted in great tubs; fish lying in heaps upon the ground; fish by 

 cart-loads; fish by boat-loads ; fish split open on long tables; fish 

 covering all the rocks outside; fish by thousands drying on poles; — 

 stacks of fish ! We raised a casual board, and behold ! the ground 

 was alive with bombardier^beetles, and there was an irregular salvo as 

 in alarm they discharged their mimic guns ! The long stretch of flat 

 sandy shore between Simon's Town and Fish-hook Bay was a favourite 

 walk of mine, fresh, breezy and full of interest. The weather had 

 been very stormy of late, and as I strolled leisurely along * the beeched 

 margent of the sea ' I stumbled across a stranded fiddle-fish with a 



