912 DR. A. G. BUTLER ON BUTTERFLIES [Dec. 4, 



is— of any striking interest from the lower altitudes [unless maybe 

 one or two taken at the last here, which I will deal with later 

 when sending you another consignment 1 ] ; so 1 need only give a 

 description of the high country at and in the neighbourhood of 

 Eoromo where, during the last six months, I have been working 

 amongst the wild Wakikuyu, and where most of my insect 

 collecting has been done. 



" From Nairobi — which lies at about 5400 feet — the Uganda 

 Eailway ascends from the vast open plains of Masailand into the 

 Kikuyu hills, at first through cultivated laud for some twenty-five 

 miles, then through primaeval forest of gigantic growth, commencing 

 at about TWO feet, and reaching 7820 feet on Lali flat — on either 

 side of which, again, there are hills some 400 or 500 feet high. 



" It was in this primaeval forest that I had my camp, at approxi- 

 mately 7700 feet. 



" There could hardly be a more unique country in its way ; for, 

 though practically on the Equator, the climate is never hot, or 

 rarely warm [except in broad noonday, when the sun is out in all 

 its force], but is generally moist or even downright raw — as, 

 whether or not the rainy seasons are on (there are two in the 

 year) there are desultory rains and blanket-like mists ; there is. 

 therefore, really no dry season in the proper sense of the term. 

 The highest temperature I remember having recorded iu the 

 daytime, in the shade, is 711°; the lowest, at night, 51°. 



" It is scarcely surprising to find the Flora of such a country and 

 climate to some considerable extent that of Northern Europe : — 

 On the open grass-flats at Mayimoru, lkwiakwi, Eoromo, and 

 Lali grow juicy clovers of the white and pink flowered species, 

 foxtail grass, monstrous thistles breast high, docks, dandelions, 

 plantains (so troublesome on the lawns at home), buttercups, 

 sorrel, and other familiar plants and flowers. 



" In the forest and on its outskirts grow blackberry-bushes 

 with dark mulberry-coloured fruit, nettles of preposterous size and 

 proportionally painful even through khaki, jasmine in and out of 

 flower every few weeks, and last but not least interesting, from 

 old associations, that long tendril-like burr which it so delighted 

 one in one's childhood to pluck and attach to unsuspecting elders. 



" The Fauna consists of Elephants [now Eoyal Game], Leopards, 

 Sewals, Genets, Tree-Isyra [the most striking, perhaps, of all the 

 denizens of the forest], Galagos, monster Baboons with long 

 shaggy coats, Colobus, a species of Cenopithecus with a white 

 throat [probably C. albigularis], and birds innumerable, though 

 for the most part small and retiring, the more conspicuous among 

 them being Hornbills, Plantain-eaters, Green Parrots, and the 

 red-legged, red-billed, dusky Francolin common to Kikuyu forest 

 and generally the earliest harbinger of dawn. 



" Eeptiles are represented by — as far as I now know — one 

 small harmless Snake [two specimens of which I have secured, to 



1 Apparently the third box, which reached me just after I got this letter,— 

 A. G. B. 



