430 SPRING AT KOI.OBENG. 



wind, the thermometer sinks as low as 42 °, and conveys 

 the impression of bitter cold. 



Nothing can exceed the beauty of the change from the 

 wintry appearance to that of spring, at Kolobeng. Pre- 

 vious to the commencement of the rains, an easterly wind 

 blows strongly by day, but dies away at night. The 

 clouds collect in increasing masses, and relieve in some 

 measure the bright glare of the southern sun. The wind 

 dries up everything ; and when at its greatest strength is 

 hot, and raises clouds of dust. The general temperature 

 during the day rises above g6° : then showers begin to 

 fall ; and if the ground is but once well soaked with a 

 good day's rain, the change produced is marvellous. In 

 a day or two a tinge of green is apparent all over the 

 landscape ; and in five or six days, the fresh leaves 

 sprouting forth, and the young grass snooting up, give an 

 appearance of spring which it requires weeks of a colder 

 climate to produce. The birds, which in the hot dry 

 windy season had been silent, now burst forth into merry 

 twittering songs, and are busy building their nests. Some 

 of them, indeed, hatch several times a-year. The lowering 

 of the temperature, by rains or other causes, has much the 

 same effect as the increasing mildness of our own spring. 

 The earth teems with myriads of young insects ; in some 

 parts of the country hundreds of centipedes, myriapedes, 

 and beetles emerge from their hiding-places, somewhat 

 as our snails at home do ; and in the evenings the white 

 ants swarm by thousands. A stream of them is seen to 

 rush out of a hole, and, after flying one or two hundred 

 yards, they descend ; and if they light upon a piece of 

 soil proper for the commencement of a new colony, they 

 bend up their tails, unhook their wings, and, leaving them 

 on the surface, quickly begin their mining operations. 

 If an attempt is made to separate the wings from the 

 body by drawing them away backwards, they seem as if 

 hooked into the body, and tear away large portions of the 

 insect ; but if turned forward, as the ant itself does, they 

 snap off with the greatest ease. Indeed they seem formed 

 only to serve the insect in its short flight to a new habita- 

 tion, and then to be thrown aside. Nothing can exceed 

 the eagerness with which at the proper time they rush out 

 from their birthplace. Occasionally this occurs in a house, 

 and then, in order to prevent every corner from being 

 rilled with them, I have seen a fire placed over the orifice ; 



