146 
NATURE NOTES 
down to light canary, and the black wing-coverts lose distinct- 
ness. 
A few most interesting members of the titmouse family abide 
here : the one seen on this occasion ( Pavus niger) is widely spread, 
and hereabouts almost always met with in pairs, hurriedly 
passing from bush to bush, into the hearts of which they 
promptly dive, expressing themselves with angry chatter when 
apprehending observation. Getting unnoticed upon an over- 
hanging bank, I was enabled to closely watch a pair of the 
species named, and noted that while the deep black plumage 
of the male is relieved by a white shoulder patch and white edg- 
ings to quills and tips of tail feathers, his companion — either the 
female or a full grown youngster — did not show these markings, 
but had instead a faint rufous rump. Their calls were identical, 
and saxicolean affinities were exhibited in frequent jerky erec- 
tions of tail and flicking of wings. 
Arriving at a big krantz surmounted by a strip of bush, things 
were made lively by the appearance in the latter of a family of 
Black-faced Vervets, the youth of which were apparently being 
taught their manners, the chasing and screaming going on being 
suggestive of a back-slum scene. It was amusing to see the 
haste with which they sought cover when aware of my presence : 
very likely they did not go far, as I have noticed before how 
effectively they hide by simply placing themselves against the 
grey trunks of trees or in crevices of grey rocks — this colour 
harmonising completely with their own fur. To a farmer, soon 
afterwards met, I spoke of these monkeys, and he remarked 
they were becoming too numerous, instancing a recent occasion 
where, while waiting in the bush for a chance shot at a buck, a 
large troop of them swung across his path, and when thirty-four 
had been counted he could not resist the temptation to fire, 
which caused half as many more coming on to drop to the 
ground and scamper past him. 
When I encountered this farmer he was on his way to place 
among such swarms as were infesting his “ lands ” a few locusts, 
to which had been artificially imparted a certain fungoid disease. 
Inoculation is the present panacea for some of the numerous ills 
our farmers have to contend with ; and the value of the same 
was conspicuously demonstrated last year when rinderpest en- 
tered the Colony and threatened to make a clean sweep of the 
cattle, had not the brilliant Dr. Koch arrived and on the spot 
discovered a means of greatly checking the plague through 
inoculation. Now it seems the nugatory locust, guilty of vast 
havoc ever since 1893, is to be fought by a somewhat similar 
method, in which it is very much to be hoped science will 
prevail. 
There is no time of the year on this part of the coast when 
a botanist cannot find plenty of field work, and though for a 
month or two after midsummer the veld has least to offer him 
the flowering shrubs come again to the front. I was not par- 
