parasites take possession of the eggs before the shell is formed; and from an English newspaper that I recently received from the Cape I learnt that some ostriches’ eggs had been found quite full of worms.
Having crossed the river at Mr. Ross’s ford, I arrived at Colesberg. Here I had so hospitable a reception, that I did not like to refuse the request made by a number of my friends that I would deliver a lecture. It was the first that I had ever attempted, but the result was so satisfactory that I ventured to plead in this way for the opening up of Central Africa from the south in some of the other towns of the colony.
In company with Mr. Knobel I paid a visit to the Colesberg hill. It is equally interesting to the botanist, the geologist, and the zoologist. The number of mountain-hares, rock-rabbits, birds of prey, starlings, pigeons, snakes, lizards, spiders, and other insects that I saw more than repaid the exertion of the clamber.
Hence my next stage was towards Cradock, not however by the shortest route, because of the parched state of the district, but viâ Middleburg, so as to find better fodder for the bullocks. The first destination on the route was Kuilfontein, Mr. Murray’s farm, where Mr. Knobel told me he had seen some fossilized animal remains in a wall. I obtained permission of the owner to take as much of the wall down as I wanted, and found some fine pieces of the skeletons of saurians embedded in hard sandstone; they belonged principally to the dicynodon and to the lacertan and crocodilian species; besides these I discovered a fossil plant in the grey sandstone overlying the dicynodon strata
