joined together again at some future time; I was careful to keep a special note-book, in which, besides other particulars, I recorded the different names by which the plants were called by the Masupias, the Manansas, and the Matongas respectively. Of such funguses as I could neither press nor dry I took sketches, an employment that gave me occupation on a number of sleepless nights. My entomological curiosities had to be stored away in a wide-mouthed pickle-jar that Westbeech had given me, having thoughtfully filled it with slips of writing-paper, which he knew would be useful; the insects were killed by plunging the jar several times into boiling water in my coffee-pot.
The beetles that seemed to me to be most abundant were the ground-beetles (Cicindela, Mantichora granulata, Carabidæ), scarabæidæ, leaf-beetles, weevils, and sand-beetles (Psammodes). Of this last genus there are such countless varieties that they excite the astonishment of even the phlegmatic Dutch farmers; they have thick hard tails, which they raise every few seconds, and give a tap to the ground or floor on which they are crawling; this habit has made the Dutchmen say that they are knocking, or calling for one another. I was glad to find the Mantichora and the Anthia thoracica, which are very interesting; they live in holes already made in the ground, or in cavities scraped out by themselves, often so deep that it was quite a wonder how they could be pierced in the loose sand; their industry seemed to keep them at work all day long, and they had a habit of rearing themselves up on their long legs, as though they were making a survey of what was going on all round. Another habit they
