NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
118 
Saw a golden-backed woodpecker ( Mesopicus rhodeogaster), 
a black rail ( Ortygometra niger), and augur buzzard ( Buteo 
augur), a magnificent species. 
March 19, 1915. — Caught six more skinks ( Mabuia varia) 
on hillside by P.W.D. sheds ; also took three very hairy cater- 
pillars and one that had spun up from under a stone. The 
hair was so long that I at first mistook them for a rat curled 
up in its hole. 
March 20, 1915. — At same spot as yesterday caught three 
more of the lizards. Down by a donga (dry watercourse) 
a 17§ inch black-necked cobra ( Naia nigricollis) started 
from a tussock of grass as I passed. My boy, who was two 
yards behind, struck at it with his cane. I heard the thwack 
and was back with a bound. The reptile sat up, faced me, and 
spread its hood, when I pinned it down and picked it up ; by 
the time it was in the bag I expect it was nearly dead. We 
also caught some specimens of Bana Nutti (Nutt’s frog) in a 
pond. 
March 22, 1915. — At a pond in Parkland’s Forest I took 
thirty-nine specimens of the smooth-clawed frog ( X . Icevis) 
and five Bana. This will give you some idea of the way 
this pond was teeming with the creatures ; it was nothing 
uncommon to take five or six each time with a judicious drag 
of the net along the bottom. 
March 24, 1915. — At a pond on the plains I found Xenoyus 
abundant, took seven specimens of Bana Nutti, two of Bana 
sp. ind., and one of lots of Dytiscus beetles, and one huge 
Hydro'philus were caught. Someone brought in two fine 
Jackson’s chameleons ( C . Jacksoni) from the road outside, 
and I caught one in the garden myself. 
March 29, 1915. — First heavy rains last night, 1*85 inches. 
I looked out at 7 a.m., when it was still raining, and the sky 
was full of flying termites, about one to every ten cubic feet 
and as high up as could be seen. I went out and caught a 
dozen ; they were numerous in the grass, where they perched 
head downwards and flapped their wings very fast. These 
wings are so fragile that it is a wonder that they stand wet 
at all. A pool was formed in a depression about a hundred 
feet from my window, 15 feet long by 5 feet wide by 8 inches 
