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Gogga Brown 



goggas, things animate as opposed to the in- 

 animate. But at the same time the word is 

 taught to convey an element of mystery and fear, 

 of warning against the danger of a bite, and it 

 is not without its sense of loathsomeness. Used 

 figuratively it means almost as much, for a gogga 

 is a bogey, the embodiment of a fantasy, the bee 

 in any bonnet. 



Such is the somewhat dubious nature of the 

 title that was bestowed upon this elfish bogey-man 

 by his village contemporaries. Like most nick- 

 names, however, it caricatures him with a good 

 deal of appropriateness, for in life he was a hermit, 

 spurning, modern Diogenes as he was, most of 

 the comforts and conventions of ordinary life, and 

 caring for no one more than for his reptile pets 

 and geological pursuits. But when I have drawn 

 aside the veil of cobwebs, behind which this our 

 greatest South African Naturalist lived and 

 worked, there stands revealed the real Gogga 

 Brown, a man deserving of respect and honour. 

 It would in fact appear that we have been 

 monkeying with a Darwin in our midst, for this 

 wonderful man has a sufficient number of 

 scientific discoveries and achievements to his 

 credit to place him amongst the elite of Naturalists. 



With regard to surname, my hero bears the 

 somewhat plebeian patronymic of * Brown \ for 



