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Seven Years in South Africa.

that are common in the eastern province of the colony. I stayed over a week at the farm, and so pleasant was my entertainment, and so full of interest my fossil investigations that I should have been delighted to avail myself of the hospitable invitation to remain longer, but I knew that in consequence of the drought Mr. Murray was at a great expense in buying food for part of his cattle, and in sending the other part off to a distance where some grass survived, and I would not permit myself to encroach upon his kindness longer than I could help. My host, during the time I was with him, took me for several excursions around Kuilfontein, and I found strata of clay-slate containing small mollusks, as well as traces of huge lizards, probably dicynodons. The only game that I saw was springbocks, bustards, grunters, partridges, wild pigeons, and wild ducks. On the farm itself I secured three of the herons that are nearly tame, and build every year on the pastures beside the springs.

The continuation of the extreme drought made the latter stages of my journey to Cradock very arduous. At Newport Farm I found some pretty fossils, including some impressions of lizards. Here, again, I had a hearty welcome, and was sorry not to be able to accept an invitation to join a party that was being arranged for gazelle-hunting and fishing. The Newport Farm scenery is the best in the Middleburg district, and I look forward to making good use of a photographic apparatus on a future visit.

My intention had originally been to stay only a few days in Cradock to recruit my bullocks, all of which were now very weary, a few of them