86 
NATURAL HISTORY JOTTINGS IN NATAL. April, 1892. 
pits, at the bottom of which the larvae can always be found. 
Their habits are too well known for me to have much to 
say about them, but I have seen them put to a use that 
was very interesting. In our garden, the children have 
a hive of bees, which was always being disturbed by ants, 
so they collected a quantity of ant-lion larvae and put them in 
the loose sand around the post that supports the hive, and as 
the ants would have to cross these pits to get to the hive, you 
may judge they formed a good protection. 
We have some lovely dragon-flies, but, as when dead they 
will not keep the beautiful colour of their bodies, they lose 
much of their interest. Some of our species seem to 
frequent the bush far more than the neighbourhood of water, 
and one kind I have never seen near the water. It has dark 
greenish-bronze wings with the tips quite transparent, the 
coloured portion ending so abruptly as to give the wings, 
when seen at some little distance, the appearance of having 
been folded and the ends snipped off with a pair of scissors. 
The body of this species is a lovely gray-blue colour. Another 
species, with a bright red body and wings like crimson net¬ 
work, can be found near any stream or water-course, hovering 
over the water or settled on the damp ground or rocks. 
In the pools on the marshy ground or ‘‘flats,” as we call 
it, one may often see the head of a mud-tortoise just above 
water level, and the children bait hooks with grasshoppers and 
catch them. I cannot say that I should care to fish for them, 
as they have a most sickening smell. An old man came to 
me one morning with a dead snake in one hand and one ol 
these mud-tortoises under his arm. He had heard that I 
wanted “ animals ” of any sort, and so he had brought them 
for me. I took the tortoise home, bored a hole in the edge of 
its shell, and fastened it by means of a copper wire to a tree, 
and then watched it. It commenced to burrow in the soft 
ground by working with its feet and constantly turning with 
a circular motion, so that it really got underground by 
making a spiral. 
When wandering down.the rocky bed of a stream that in 
summer would be an unfordable torrent, the curiously woven 
nests of the golden weaver may be often seen suspended from 
the reeds and swinging in the breeze, while the birds hang 
from them, and keep up an incessant chattering while at 
their work. These nests have the openings underneath, so 
that the eggs are protected from any marauders. 
By turning over the stones on the dry bank side, you will 
probably find a scorpion with its claws so threateningly 
expanded as to make one feel that it would be far from a 
pleasant bedfellow. I would rather have one of them on 
