24 IIOUX EXPEDITlUN' — XARUATIVE. 



On tlic ofcasidii (if my sccoiul \isit to C'liiirlnttc ^V,•lt(•|■.s it was almost 

 impossiljlc to liclif'VL' tliat 1 was passing ovoi' the same jtaiLluxI and dfied-up 

 country wliicli wo liad pi'o\iously tra.NOfscd. The ciintrast with respect to the 

 vegetation and the water-holes and clay-pans has been already alluded to but in 

 every respect the change was most striking. 



Being summer time, the climate was rather trying. Even in wiiitei- during 

 the hot days tlie flies are ratiier ainioying, but in sunnner they are simply 

 exasperating and all day long you must shield your eyes, ears anil nose if you are 

 to ha\e anything like C(jmfort. The only way in which 1 found it at aJl possible 

 to make any observations or to collect was by tying my head into a muslin bag 

 and putting up with the ii'ritation on the hands. Long before the buzzing of the 

 llies ceases in the evening the moscpiitoes are humming around in niyriails, and 

 when camped out ac night the only chance of sleep, unless by good luck a wind 

 was blowing, was to lie in a little cotlin-shaped tent of cheese-cloth. If the wind 

 blew, then there were certainly fmver flies, but everything you had — clothes, food 

 and collecting material — was jienetrated l>y flne sand-grains. It was often in the 

 summer time an alternative as to whether our meals woukl consist of bread, meat 

 and flies, or bread, meat and sand. The Ijlacks, whose greasy skin has a great 

 attraction for the flies, do not seem to mind them and often you will see their 

 eyes covered with the insects which they do not even take the trouble to 

 Ijrush oir. 



There is, however, one pest which is far less troublesome immediately after 

 the wet than during the dry season, and that is the ants, at least this is so in the 

 country through which T travelled. On our E.xpedition little black ants were 

 wandering about everywhere, on my second visit scarcely one was to be seen. As 

 I went up, the ground was alive with countless nuudjers of caterpillars of various 

 sizes crawling about in all directions and aflbrding a plenteous food supply not 

 only to frogs and lizards whose bodies were swollen out with them, Init also to the 

 blacks. On the return journey not a trace of them was to be seen, l_>ut their place 

 was taken Ijy a particular kind of small brown grasshojiper, the larger forms of 

 which insect (such as Trigoniza maculatus), so plentiful during the dry months, 

 were not now to be found. Proljably these small ones in their turn would 

 disappear and give place to something else. 



Lizards abounded and were all full of eggs and nut only this but Just lil^e the 

 frogs they were, as comjiai-ed witii those jjieviously obtained, in their Ijiightest 

 colours. 



