Twenty-Five Years in a Waggon in South Africa: Sport and Travel in South AfricaAnderson, Andrew A.
History
Twenty-Five Years in a Waggon in South Africa: Sport and Travel in South Africa
Anderson, Andrew A.
Africa, Southern -- Description and travel; Anderson, Andrew A. -- Travel -- Africa, Southern
In the morning, on examining the spoor, there must have been many wild
dogs engaged in the chase, but they were stopped at the sight of the two
fires and waggons, and our shots at the blesbok as they passed us. In
the small grove of trees under which our camp was pitched, we founded
several very large chameleons measuring fifteen inches in length. We
discovered them by hearing a noise on one of the branches, caused by a
fight between two of the largest, which we caught, but gave them their
liberty before leaving. I also, during my explorations, made a
collection of many kinds of the mantis family, commonly called in
Africa, Hottentot gods, as they always appear to be praying, having
their two arms held as if in that act; their four legs are used for
locomotion. They feed themselves with their hands. I made a collection
of forty-seven different kinds, those with wings and those wingless,
both kinds having well-developed bodies. Then there is a third kind
without bodies, called walking-sticks, each kind having four legs, two
arms and hands. I made twenty-two collections of the winged; the
largest measured eleven inches in length, brown bodies and lovely purple
wings, two on each side, two horns on the head a little over an inch in
length, large eyes, with a mouth similar to a wasp's, with flat head and
neck four inches in length, from the lower part of which the two arms
spring. The four legs were fixed in the centre of the body; the
smallest size with wings measured one and a half inches in length; each
size differed somewhat in shape. I put one of these, which measured six
inches, green on the back and yellow underneath, with silvery wings,
into a paper-collar box. One afternoon, on looking at it half an hour
afterwards, I found it had woven a nest on to the side, composed of
silky and light-brown material, and the insect appeared quite dead or in
a torpid state. Putting the box away, I forgot to look at it for
several months; when I opened the box I found upwards of 200 young ones,
all dead, each about one-eighth of an inch in length. The greater
portion of my specimens I caught in my waggon at night when my candle
was burning and my fore-sail up, being like the moths attracted by the
light. The wingless ones I found on bushes or in the grass. The third
kind, the walking-stick, I always found in the grass. The first time I
caught one was when I was collecting some beetles. I saw, as I thought,
a piece of live grass moving along. Sitting down on the ground to watch
it, I found it had four legs, which moved very slowly, and two in front
that stuck straight out in line with the body. Carefully observing its
movements, I saw at once it was a very strange kind of insect. Taking a
piece of grass to lift it from the ground, the thing showed fight at
once by raising its head, opening and shutting its mouth, drawing up its
two long arms from the straight position, and striking out at the grass
I held to its head.
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