April, 1892. NATURAL HISTORY JOTTINGS IN NATAL. 
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the town proper, where it is all red sand, while in town where 
we have the white sea sand they are not nearly so numerous. 
They must have many enemies, or they would soon become 
so numerous as to be beyond control; and even now people 
build their houses on brick pillars so as to be able to get 
beneath them, and so keep a lookout for the little "clay 
tunnels within which the ants work. Birds are very fond 
of them; and it is a pretty sight to see the swallows dart 
down from the trees and snap them up almost before they 
have left the ground. 
Another great destroyer of dead wood is the boring beetle. 
We have several, I may say many, different kinds of these 
beetles, and nearly all are the long-horned ones—very like 
the European musk beetle. They are lovely insects, some 
with bright green elytra and thorax of crimson gold, some 
all shining emerald-green, and some with light red stripes 
on a ground colour of pale green, but all with a strong 
musky smell that gives to them their common name. In 
splitting up some dead wood I once found no less than five 
specimens of the species, brightly coloured with green and 
crimson, and just ready to emerge from the holes in which 
they were laid, with their legs folded close to their bodies. 
A short time before they were soft white maggots, but they 
had now begun to eat their way along, and were driving their 
tunnels through the wood with a precision equal to a boring 
machine. In this piece of wood, less than a foot long, there 
were larvae, pupae, and perfect insects, thus giving a far better 
lesson in their life-history than any book could possibly do. 
One species, with a body about three-eighths of an inch in 
length, has horns quite three times as long as its body. I 
cannot say whether these beetles eat the dead wood, but they 
have powerful mandibles, which project downwards, and not 
towards as in most beetles. 
In hollow trees or dark dry holes, I have found the so-called 
“ Scorpion spider” (Phrynus). This is a very good name for 
them, as they are intermediate between the scorpions and 
true spiders. Their flattened bodies are about as large as a 
shilling, and they have eight legs, of which only six are used 
for walking, the first pair being very long and fine, and more 
like antennae than legs; while in front they have a toothed 
pair of nippers, which make them look so like scorpions. 
Whilst walking along, on the lookout for entomological 
specimens, it is no uncommon thing to be arrested by the 
vacant stare of a chameleon, that sits with its feet and tail 
clasping the twig on which it rests, and turns and rolls its 
eyes in all directions. Their peculiar feet, that look as though 
they were short of some of their toes, are beautifully adapted 
