India and the Indians

by Edward Fenton Elwin

At certain seasons, and especially when it is warm and damp, the evening meal in the country is attended with difficulty because of the quantity of insects, especially beetles, which are attracted by the lamp, and they appear to make a specialty of falling into any dish which may be at hand. When camping out the difficulty is intensified, and the only thing to be done is to put the lamp at a distance and to dine in comparative darkness. Such a variety of insects come that an entomologist might make quite a respectable collection in the course of one night. One of these evening visitors after the rains is a long, slim beetle, green, or sometimes buff in colour, with a small head which fits loosely into his body. He twists his head about as if his collar was uncomfortable. When alarmed he exudes a strong acid which at once raises a blister. He is the more dangerous because, flying in rapidly, he often alights on your collar or neck, and the action of brushing him off causes the emission of the acid, and the blister follows.

In the daytime, bees, black and hairy, immense in size, and making a noise like a threshing-machine, come banging in at the open windows. They are not as formidable as they look, except in their own domains, and they quickly depart in response to indications that they are not wanted. They know their way out without difficulty, which is contrary to the experience of most intruding animals.

A solitary wasp is apt to select inconvenient places in which to build a mud-cell wherein to deposit its egg, and the store of live caterpillars destined to be the food of its young when hatched. You find a keyhole, or the tap of a filter, filled with mud as the result of this wasp's labours. It works so rapidly that it generally completes its job in the course of a day. An even more inconvenient site for its nest is the sleeve of a garment left hanging on a peg, especially if you put the garment on while the wasp is at work. A small colony of social wasps built their comb under the refectory table of the village Mission-house. They were so determined to remain that for some months they resisted all attempts to get rid of them, returning as often as they were dispersed.

Cockroaches, some of great size, abound in most houses, and are very destructive. They nibble the bindings of books, and cut quaint devices, which look almost as if they had been done with a pair of scissors, in clothes put away in drawers. They run at an amazing pace when they think they are in danger.

Jet black ants, enormously big and warlike in appearance, come into bungalows, sometimes in unpleasantly large numbers, to see what they can pick up. They are not really aggressive, nor do they do any particular mischief. Another kind of ant, very like an ordinary English one though smaller, is a great trial to housekeepers. They get into the bread and sugar and other stores, and though cupboards are generally set in saucers of water on account of insect depredators, these ants often manage to get in.

White ants are most destructive in a house if it is built of materials which they can deal with. In the case of many houses in India, mud is used instead of mortar, and the structure suffers greatly if the white ants take possession. All woodwork, including furniture, ought to be of teak, because they are unable to burrow into it. Sound hard floors are necessary, so that when ants try to work their way upwards they may find their road blocked. Otherwise, in the course of one night, they will eat large holes in a mat or carpet, coming up from beneath. They make havoc in a library if they get amongst the books. Many ant-heaps out in the country are so large as to be conspicuous objects.

Scorpions may be found anywhere. In your bedding, in your boots, in your clothes, under your books and, out of doors, chiefly under stones. You soon get into the way of prudently shaking each garment before putting it on. The scorpion averages about two inches in length, but they vary a good deal in size, and also in colour. They much resemble a little lobster in appearance. Their sting is not dangerous under ordinary circumstances, but the pain is great, and resembles a blow on the funny bone, continuing acute for some hours. The boys, sleeping on the floor and having bare feet, get stung now and then, and generally make great lamentations over the misfortune.

Indian boys are like many English rustics in their disregard for the feelings of animals—they appear honestly to think that they have none—and they delight in forming a chain of scorpions by making them grip each other, which they do fiercely, and hang on tenaciously. Boys will also nip off the end of their tail to prevent them from stinging, and leave them in this maimed condition.

Wherever Indians live, bugs are invariably found. Hence in schools where many Indian children are gathered together these insects are sure to find an entrance, in spite of vigilant care and cleanliness. When the small boys of the Mission moved out from their old quarters in the city, which like all old native houses was much infested, immense pains were taken to make sure that no bug was transported to the new home in the country. But it was not long before these intruders showed themselves in the new house. Possibly they fulfil some useful but at present unknown function as destroyers of microbes.

Spiders are much in evidence, and some are very large and fierce. Out in the country I once fairly ran away from a great spider, which made for my foot with a courage and ferocity such as one would not expect to find in an animal of the kind. But they are not altogether unwelcome in a house, because they help to keep down the population of the insect world. There is a handsome little spider who spins no web, and roves about, and springs on its victim like a tiger.