THE MELON OF THE KALAHARI DESERT 29 
this also had been a failure, but later be found some small 
striped melons among the grass which I have no doubt were 
sama. This was most encouraging, for I was very much afraid 
that the seed must have been taken from unripe melons and 
was useless. Some of the melons on Mr. Hill’s farm have been 
left on the ground, and it will be interesting to see whether they 
will grow again of their own accord. 
This year in April I planted another lot of the same seed in 
the Reserve from Athi River down to Simba Station, and as 
the rains were abnormally heavy I was in great hopes that 
successful results would follow, and I am glad to say that in 
some places the melons have grown and produced fruit. On 
the Athi and Kapiti no signs of the sama could be found, but 
farther down the line, at Sultan Hamud, and particularly at 
Simba, there was quite a good crop and the game had apparently 
been eating them, but the melons were much smaller than in 
South Africa. It is rather curious why they should do so much 
better at Simba than at Athi River ; possibly there is some 
difference in the soil, or the altitude and temperature may have 
been more suitable at Simba, or, again, there may be some 
insects on the Athi Plains which destroyed the young plants. 
I am rather inclined to think that insects have played a more 
important part in preventing the sama from growing than 
altitude or climatic conditions, for the following reasons : 
This year I also planted about fifty seeds in my garden in 
Nairobi, and after nearly two months and a half of heavy rain 
fourteen of the seeds germinated and young plants appeared. 
They grew well until — as I suppose was only to be expected — the 
resident insect life discovered the strangers and set upon them. 
First something began to eat the leaves, then suddenly, without 
any visible cause, five of the plants shrivelled up and died. 
They had so obviously the appearance of having been cut 
through just below the surface of the ground that I dug them 
up and found that such was indeed the case. I took one of 
the dead plants to Mr. Anderson who at once diagnosed the 
case as ‘ cut- worm,’ and I am strongly of the opinion that it is 
this or some other insect pest which has destroyed the sama on 
the Athi Plains. Mr. Anderson advised me to mix a little 
poison (Paris green) with bran and a little sugar and sprinkle 
