SOUTHERN AFRICA. 
325 
bird, by its geftures, feems as if confcious of its fuperior beauty. 
The Upupa^ or Hopoe, was very plentiful ; the Num'ida mdea- 
gris equally fo. A fifth fpecies of buftard was alfo feen here, 
with brown and white wings, and neck of a cerulean blue color ; 
fize, that of a pheafant. Along the road were numbers of that 
beautiful little pigeon, called here the Namaaqua dove, not 
larger than a fparrow. 
On entering one of the narrow vallies, we feemed on a iud- 
den to be overtaken in the midft of a fhower of fnow, which we 
thought to be the pappus or down of certain plants. On clofer 
examination, however, it was found to proceed from myriads 
of white ants, on the wing. The life of the Ephemeris, in its 
perfed: ftate, is that of a fingle day ; but the flight of the white 
ant is but a leap into the air for a few moments, from whence 
they tumble to the ground never to rife again. The wings are 
fo very fine, and fo flightly attached to their bodies, that they 
generally fall off, or are broken with the fall. Others imme- 
diately roll them off, and afterwards creep into the crevices of 
the ground to end their exiftence in quiet. It would feem they 
had fome prefentiment of the doom that avs^aited them, and 
that they haftened to efcape under the cover of the earth to 
avoid being devoured by their own children, which, in num- 
berlefs myriads, fwarm in the roads and naked places of the 
ground, particularly after a fhower of rain. Heat and moifture, 
the two great productive powers in nature, or thofe at leaft that 
call the vital principle into a£lion, bring forth the young from 
the eggs of all the infe£t tribe that are depofited in the ground. 
Thus, though a rainy furamer may promote vegetation, yet it 
