Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/286

254 "Rymer's Creek" is a happy hunting-ground for an entomologist. It is a mountain path running at the back of the town, and which gradually narrows as it is ascended, for richer vegetation waits on its higher altitude. Delightful rivulets of cold spring water afford relief to the tired and too-perspiring naturalist, while for butterflies it proved the richest rendezvous I met in the Transvaal. Here one meets with the Natal Lepidopteral fauna, such species as Amauris dominicanus, Protogoniomorpha anacardii, Charaxes varanes, and Papilio ophidicephalus never being procured on the high veld of the Transvaal.

I left Barberton on Jan. 28th, when heavy rain began to set in. It was described as having been the driest summer remembered, and the watercourses were almost empty; but I heard a few days after:—"We have had awful weather since you left us; since the morning of the 28th over twelve inches of rain have fallen. From Thursday, Feb. 6th, at 1.30, to Friday the 7th, same hour, there fell 6·04 in. The country is full; letters cannot go forward.... I don't think you would know the creek again if you came back; the road is gone, and is now like the bed of a mountain torrent."

A peculiar coincidence with this dry summer (1894–5) in Pretoria was noted in the 'Transvaal Advertiser':—"This is an age of records, but Pretoria is recording an experience with reference to Horse-sickness which is wholly unprecedented. There may have been one or two isolated cases in town, but Horse-sickness—as known—has utterly failed to put in an appearance this year, whilst 'red-water' amongst cattle is raging throughout the land."

The Neighbourhood of Pienaars River.—This is one of the most easily reached and best collecting-grounds near Pretoria. It used to be a six hours' coach journey, but the Pietersburg Railway is now, I believe, completed to the neighbourhood, so that coaching in this direction is now a thing of the inconvenient past. Driving by road there is not much to strike the traveller beyond the usual open, dreary, but healthy veld, till Hammans Kraal is reached, and then a bush or forest country commences and continues to the Pienaars River. Hammans Kraal deserves a passing notice. It is here that the arachnologist Mons. E. Simon made a stay during his visit to the Transvaal; and when, as is