Feb., 1892. 
NATURAL HISTORY JOTTINGS IN NATAL. 
37 
While chasing one, another species would fly across my path, 
and, while still undecided as to which to catch, two or three 
others came darting past, and I sat down in despair, and it 
was only by fixing my eye on a certain one and taking no 
notice of the rest that I caught any at all. Of course all that 
is over now, and I can tell most of them by their flight alone. 
Compared with other countries, Natal, or rather South Africa, 
is poorly represented, having only about three hundred and 
eighty species of butterflies or moths, and of these nearly two- 
tliirds are found in Natal, which is the richest country m 
South Africa in insect life. I have now one hundred ^jid 
sixty-five species, and so have plenty more to catch yet, 
especially as my only opportunities are Saturday afternoons 
and a few occasional holidays, and it is during these outings 
that I have come across the different things that I think 
will be of interest to you. 
On my arrival, I received many warnings with regard to 
snakes, and at first I scarely made a step but I feared I 
should be treading on one ; but now I just blunder along and 
find that when let alone they let you alone. There is no 
doubt we have plenty of them, and I have come across some, 
but they have never given me any trouble. 
One day, whilst wandering up the dry bed of a small 
stream, over which the bright coloured crab spiders had 
strung their webs, and hung suspended from them in mid 
air, I entered a small cave-like recess in the bank, made, I 
believe, by the Kafirs when extracting clay, and busied 
myself in bottling some large, sleepy moths, very like your 
“ Old Lady ; ” and, on coming out again, I saw a small, 
black “ imamba,” as they are called here, about three feet 
long, coming gliding towards me. Taking my stick from my 
butterfly net, I soon quieted it, and would have taken its 
skin but the body writhed and twisted about so much, and my 
knife was so blunt, that I was compelled to leave it. 
I have had them get up from close to my feet, but have 
never been attacked by one, In poking in holes in the trees, 
in searching for beetles, I am always careful, as in these 
places I have found the cast-off skins of snakes ; and apart 
from these, are the centipedes, four and five inches in length, 
that would give one a nasty nip. I was up a “ flat-crown ” 
tree one day, after some large hairy caterpillars, and having 
disturbed a nest of large ants, and found them showing a 
liking for me that was not returned, I was coming down ; 
when, while forcing my way through a tangled mass of 
creepers that grew around the branch on which I was, I saw 
a bright green snake staring me in the face. Thinking the 
snake had more right to the tree than I had, I kept my eyes 
