1885.1 Forest Trees in South Africa. 17. 



naturally a rarity of insect-life in general, and mostly of wood-boring 

 insects. But the more we advance towards the east, the more 

 numerous trees become and the more numerous is also the insect-life, 

 which reaches its maximum when we come to the borders of Natal 

 along the sea coast. The forests of Kaffraria have not yet, as far as 

 I know, been well explored for the purposes of Entomology, nor has 

 the Knysna forest. But we may take for granted that the Port Natal 

 forms are found in the Kaffrarian forests, although perhaps in lesser 

 numbers, because there is no natural barrier between the two borders. 



We have then two distinct fauna — the western and the eastern ; in 

 the latter I include the northern. The western part with barren 

 wastes, few trees, subject to intense droughts and with the hotter and 

 more northern parts separated from the corresponding ones on the 

 east by the Kalahari Desert. 



The typical timber-loving insects there are the Julodis family 

 of Buprestidae ; lovely insects whose bodies covered with long tufts of 

 hair make them so well adapted to the fertilisation of the flowers of 

 the Acacia horrida, which is their favourite resort ; a few longicorns, 

 three species of which, Ceroplesis CEthiops, C. hottentota and 

 Zographus oculator, are very numerous. Now and then, one meets 

 with some large form of Frionidae, vid. : Tithoes capensis, Cacosceles 

 (Edipus and C. latus, all of them rare ; also with Serioderus hirtus. 

 Tithoes capensis found in Beaufort West and near Kenhardt, seem 

 to me to imply the disappearance of trees in those localities. The 

 Cacosceles latus comes from Namaqualand. 



The Northern Border of the Colony formed by the Orange Eiver, 

 the banks of which are clothed with a dense vegetation, has not been 

 much explored. But the banks of the Yaal Eiver, an affluent of the 

 Orange Eiver, has yielded a certain number of specimens which, 

 added to a few collected near Upington by the late Dr. Bradshaw, 

 enable me to say that as far as I at present know, the coleopterous 

 forms are related more to the splendid fauna of the Magaliesberg 

 Range near Eustenburg, in the Transvaal, than to the Port Natal 

 forms. We can easily understand that insect-life has been preserved 

 all along the wooded banks. There, seems to be the limit of habitat 

 of the large Prionus. " Tithoes eonfinis,^^ also found in Senegambia, 

 Eustenberg and Mozambique, and whose larva, judging by that of 

 allied genera, is one-fourth longer than the insect and a little broader. 

 That larva would naturally be fatal to the tree it attacks. We must 

 notice also that it is on the banks of that river that the Euclea 

 pseudehenus — Cape ebony — and the Camel thorn — Acacia giraffae, 

 bolh woods of the hardest texture, grew. I purposely say grew, 

 because those valuable trees have now well-nigh disappeared before 

 the wants of the Kimberley market for fuel. The eastern part of the 

 Colony, including Plettenberg Bay, possesses but few typical insects ; 

 they are mostly the Natal forms, in the same way that those Natal 

 coast-forms are akin to those of the Transvaal, although separated 

 from the latter country by a comparatively treeless tract, and by 

 several plateaux; the connection taking place very likel}'" through 

 Zululand; but Delagoa Bay, which is the limit for us, at present, is 

 decidedly Mozambican in forms. 



Of the extreme western part of the Colony, Damaraland, I cannot 

 say much, having seen but few insects from those parts, but I exhibit, 

 nevertheless, a Prionus from that country, allied to, if not identical 



