90 The Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society 
twenty-four specimens only, it is highly probable that a good many 
more must have been present on these snow-fields, and that, although 
some of these may have been brought thither by the wind, there exists 
an insect fauna of its own in these alpine regions of the Cape. None 
of these flies is nearly related to the glacier flea (Desoria glacialis) 
which abounds on and near the red snow of the Alps, but they are not 
the only flies that live on snow, for in Macquart’s ‘ Histoire Naturelle,’ 
Vol. L, p. 74, I find the description of a fly of similar size, Chionea 
araneoides, which was discovered by Mr. Dalman on the snow-fields in 
Northern Sweden : 
‘La Chionée est plus extraordinaire encore par son habitation ; elle 
ne s’est encore trouvée que sur la neige, et elle y marche avec facilité. 
Lorsque Dalman la découvrit dans les foréts de la Suéde, son étonnement 
ne fut sans doute pas moins grand que celui du botaniste qui trouva 
pour la premiere fois ‘“/’Uredo nivalis.” C’est pendant tout ’hiver et 
particulierement sur la neige nouvellement tombée que l’on rencontre 
la Chionée.’ 
Who would have thought that South Africa could be the home of 
insects, similar in their mode of life to this curiosity of the Swedish 
forests, ‘Ex Africa semper aliquid novi.’ 
The flora of the Hex River Valley was just at its best. Flowers 
of all kinds abounded ; delicate annuals, bulbous plants, and shrubs 
covered with blossoms filled the air with fragrant scent. 
Several rare plants were found by Mr. Bolus. Among others he 
rediscovered Celidium spinosum, Benth., only collected by Drége fifty 
years ago in the same locality, and Melolobiwm exsudans, Harv., known 
only from the collection of Dr. Thom. 
Remarkable for their beauty and deserving of cultivation, Mr. Bolus 
mentions the magnificent Mesembryanthemum Haworthu, perhaps the 
finest in the genus, with flowers over three inches in diameter, and the 
very handsome Malvastrum divaricatum. 
While the valley and the lower slopes were studded with flowers, 
the higher regions, where I searched, were gradually only awakening 
from their winter sleep. Of my finds, as far as they are worked out, 
one is new. It is a heath, but differs in some points so greatly from 
all the other 400 species of Erica, that some botanists would not 
hesitate to make a new section of it. The peculiarities are the corolla 
and the style. The latter is not straight and glabrous as usual, but 
recurved and pubescent, and the corolla is collapsible; that means 
to say, it is oval as a bud, but on opening, its upper half collapses into 
the lower one, thus forming a cup with double walls. Consequently 
the stamens protrude far beyond the corolla. Another heath which I 
found near the summit is also not yet described, but it is not new to 
