IStib.J 
213 
tropical grandeur ; but the floods of rain that were falling did not 
prevail with the steamer's captain to postpone for a little the disem- 
barking of his Natal passengers,— a process of extreme simplicity in 
that part of the world. It must be understood that the steamer lies 
outside in the open ocean, and that a clumsy cargo-boat comes out to 
her, across the bar, from the inner anchorage. Into this cargo-boat 
the passengers, with their baggage, are graciously allowed to drop or 
scramble, as well as the long rollers of the Indian Ocean will admit of 
their doing. This accomplished, away goes the steamer (if, as usual, 
late with the mails) for Mauritius or Port Elizabeth, as the case may 
be, and the boat, with its forlorn human freight, flounders and wobbles 
through the waves, and risks the dangers of the bar, before terra firma 
can be reached. 
But it is not my object to dilate upon these incidents of travel, 
and I will accordingly proceed to give some account of my impressions 
of the entomological aspect of Nature in Natal. And first, let me de- 
scribe a winter's day at Port Natal itself. 
The reader, then, will be pleased to imagine himself with me in 
the Botanic Gardens at Port Natal, a spot where an entomologist might 
profitably spend a lifetime. Let no one imagine this to be a trim and 
ordered garden such as he is accustomed to see in Europe. From the 
dense forest which clothes the long, low hill-range of the " Berea," en- 
circling the greater part of the lagoon, a limited space has been 
gradually won by sheer labour of fire and steel. The principal native 
trees have wisely been left standing in situ, and interspersed among 
them are trees, shrubs, and flowers, not merely from the adjacent 
regions of Africa, but from all the warmer parts of the world. The 
dark back-ground of forest shuts in the garden on the north and west, 
a road skirting the southern side ; but eastward one looks from the 
highest part of the slope, over a wide view of the lagoon, the town of 
D'Urban, and the open sea beyond. Here, then, we must suppose 
ourselves stationed, about 7 a.m., fronting the newly-risen sun, which 
is dispersing the mists that still cling to the wooded hills. The silence 
of the morning is only broken by the voices of birds, and the occasional 
distant shouts of Kafirs going to work. Insect life is yet perfectly 
dormant ; the nocturnal tribes have retired, and those that love the day 
are not yet aroused. It is in vain that one examines leaves and 
flowers, or beats the branches of trees just at this time ; there seem to 
be no insects alive. An hour passes, and by this time the sun is at 
some altitude, and his rays begin to penetrate the trees and under- 
growth. Tou turn from looking at the sun, and lo ! diurnal insect life 
