Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/45

 A stranger wandering through this paradise of flowers would be tempted to imagine that, with the exception of a few insects and song-birds, animal life was entirely wanting. Such, however, was far from being the case. Lurking in the low, impenetrable bushes are tiny gazelles, not two feet high, hares, jerboas, wild cats, genets, and many other animals that only wait for the approach of nightfall to issue from their hiding-places.

My excursions to the shore, along the tongue of land, were upon the whole, highly successful. During my visit I collected a large variety of fish, crabs, cephalopods, annelids, aphrodites, many genera of of mollusks, corals, sponges, and sea-weeds, as well as several specimens of the eggs of the dog-fish.

Nor did I confine myself to exploring the south shore. I wandered occasionally in the opposite direction, towards the mouth of the Zwartkop. There the shore for the most part consists of sand, which extends far out to sea, making it a favourable stranding-place for any vessel that has been torn from its anchorage during one of the frequent storms. From the sea I procured many interesting mollusks. Dog-fish abound near the mouth of the stream, while the river itself seems to teem with many kinds of fish. The banks, more especially that on the left, are rich in fossils of the chalk period, and in the alluvial soil are remains of still extant shell-fish, as well as interesting screw-shaped formations of gypsum. The coast is flatter here than it is towards the south, and the large lagoons that stretch inland