This was felt more especially by my children; and the natives, to show their sympathy, often gave them a large kind of caterpillar, which they seemed to relish; these insects could not be unwholesome, for the natives devoured them in large quantities themselves.
Another article of which our children partook with eagerness was a very large frog, called "Matlametlo".* * The Pyxicephalus adspersus of Dr.Smith.
Length of head and body, 5-1/2 inches; fore legs, 3 inches; hind legs, 6 inches.
Width of head posteriorly, 3 inches; of body, 4-1/2 inches.
These enormous frogs, which, when cooked, look like chickens, are supposed by the natives to fall down from thunder-clouds, because after a heavy thunder-shower the pools, which are filled and retain water a few days, become instantly alive with this loud-croaking, pugnacious game.

This phenomenon takes place in the driest parts of the desert, and in places where, to an ordinary observer, there is not a sign of life.
Having been once benighted in a district of the Kalahari where there was no prospect of getting water for our cattle for a day or two, I was surprised to hear in the fine still evening the croaking of frogs.
Walking out until I was certain that the musicians were between me and our fire, I found that they could be merry on nothing else but a prospect of rain.

From the Bushmen I afterward learned that the matlametlo makes a hole at the root of certain bushes, and there ensconces himself during the months of drought.

As he seldom emerges, a large variety of spider takes advantage of the hole, and makes its web across the orifice.

He is thus furnished with a window and screen gratis; and no one but a Bushman would think of searching beneath a spider's web for a frog.