216 [February, 
bacon on that of " Protection," he has no difficulty in explaining, to 
his acquaintance's admiration, that you are a great chief who allows 
him so much a month besides his food, and gives him very light work. 
It is ten to one, after this, that the two set up a barbaric chant in your 
honour, the object of which is to extract from you a "pen," or penny, 
which in Kafir computation means a threepenny bit. As you amusedly 
watch the two Africans, and admire their symmetrical proportions and 
easy flow of language, you half envy them their simple enjoyment of 
life. They have no cares, they take no thought for the morrow. 
Tailors' bills are as much unknown to them as tooth-ache. No wonder 
they are always laughing and singing. It is doubtful whether, if they 
could be brought to understand them, they would vex their brains much 
over theories of "natural selection," "centres of creation, "glacial" — . 
A deep red butterfly, floating slowly past just in front of you, cuts 
short your philosophical reflections. It settles on a leaf of the bush to 
your right, where it lazily basks with open, slightly- wavering wings. 
It is the beautiful Acrcea Petrcea ; and as you look up at the wall of 
tree-foliage and twiners behind you, you find the place alive with this 
butterfly. Conspicuous as they are, they lazily float through the warm 
air, or settle in the most exposed situations, with the utmost security. 
Other butterflies hurry about, scarcely giving themselves time to take 
food, or seem, if slow fliers, to seek concealment among the foliage. 
But these Acrcea are the very aristocrats of the Ehopalocera ; they 
will not hurry themselves for anything. Flash ! comes a great dragon- 
fly, glittering in mail of blue and green, right through the fluttering 
throng. Surely he has one of the idlers in his jaws, as he settles on a 
bare twig at some distance. Tou cautiously approach ; — the victim is 
no Acrcea, but a luckless yellow Pieris, and ^schna the terrible is 
making short work of her. While you are wondering what was the 
reason or this selection, one of the AcrcBce, perfect in depth of colour, 
passes within such easy reach that you net him without effort. The 
first thing the captive does is to feign death in a very admirable 
manner ; but, knowing the gentleman previously, you are not taken in 
by this. Finding this of no avail, he suddenly struggles mightily to 
escape, but your practised fingers close upon him. This treatment 
induces him to try his last and (usually) most effective means of dis- 
gusting his captor, and he forthwith, from various joints of his body, 
suffers to ooze forth a clear yellow liquid, which exhales a disagreeable 
odour, and strongly stains your fingers. But you are proof against 
this even, and he is securely pinned in your box, after the administra- 
tion of what you consider a vejy sufficient pinch of the thorax. 
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