ABUNDANCE OF INSECT LIFE 
119 
full of maggots, and I only saved it in time with hot wood- 
ashes mixed with alum and saltpetre. 
After leaving the river butterflies were scarce, but other 
insect life positively swarmed. There were black ants fiom 
^ inch to 1 inch in length ; there were brown ants, red 
ants, and cream-coloured ants. There were grasshoppers 
innumerable, one of which reminded me of a yellow- 
underwing moth. Another beauty had its upper wings of 
a brilliant emerald green ; another had its upper wings of 
green and chocolate brown, with under wings of a fiery 
red. Unfortunately the colours of these fade dreadfully 
after death. Then there were the marvellous ' stick ' 
insects, which you would never see unless they moved, -so 
much do they resemble a piece of stick, the branches of 
which are its legs ! The longest I caught measured 
5 inches. 
Spiders were ‘ very fine and large f one monster of 
a dull reddish-brown which ran across the floor of my 
tent at Berbera I have never ceased to regret not having 
been able to capture. Another common but very local spider, 
which builds a huge web strung between two bushes, has a 
black body with yellow bars meeting in the centre of the 
back. Beetles in Somaliland are very numerous, reptiles 
few, with the exception of small lizards in the sand. There 
are but three common snakes, two of which were said to 
be very deadly. 
According to the Somali, the Webbi Shebeyli flows into 
Egypt’s Nile. This, of course, is ridiculous, as it flows 
towards the east coast of Africa, in entirely the opposite 
direction. It is supposed never to reach the sea, but loses 
itself in a large swamp know as Lake Batti. 
A word about storing insects. Butterflies travel best in 
little triangular pieces of paper. One butterfly only 
should be put into each paper. Moths and insects with 
long brittle legs and antennae should be pinned in store 
boxes on one side of the box only, the other side having a 
sheet of cotton- wool pinned to it, in which, in the event of 
