The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1882-01-28
Insects in India.

You have recently arrived in the coun-
try, are living in a katcha house built of
sun-dried bricks and mud-mortar), have
made yourself comfortable therein, and are
going to have your first dinner party. All
your knick -knacks are proudly displayed on
your table, and in its centre blazes your
lamp, just unpacked. The dinner hour APP
proaches, and you neryously take look
round to see that all is right One or. two
insects, new to you, are futtering about the
lamp ON the table, and in brushing them off
you perhaps notice that the same insects are
swarming out of a corner or from the floor.
Your guests arrive, and while receiving and
marshalling them in to dinner the insect
invasion has assumed formidable proper
tions, so that when you SIT down to soup,
you find the air around the lamp alive with
termites, and your fair cloth covered with
them. Every soup plate is stuffed with
them, as also your glasses of sherry In
despair, you appeal to the company, or to
your table attendant, and are advised to re-
move the lamp at once from the table. On
doing so, the invaders on the wing are d.
verted and then you notice that the thous-
ands on the table have dropped their wings
broadcast, and are now chasing one another
about In comparative darkness, you finish
your dinner, and adjourn to the drawing
room. When your guests have left, curl
osity takes you back to the dining room,
and you find the table and the site of the
removed lamp strewn with myriads of wings,
and their owners nowhere.
Watch the insects outside, and the sight
Is equally wonderful From spot in the
ground where you would least expect it, you
find one or two termites huttering into the
air; watch them narrowly, and you will
find minute hole, far too minute for the
hordes which are squeezing out of it and
then rising into the air. Around the hole
half-a-dozen wingless workers are fussing
frantically. But let us watch the perfect
insects, and return afterward to the work
ers- Soon we see pyramidal cloud of in
sects in the air, the apex resting over the
hole This becomes denser and spreads
wider as the breeze catches their wings.
News of the fight has been telegraphed far
and wide. Sparrows and crows, fy-eatch-
ers and king-crows, kites and mynas, flock
to the scene, and gorge on the fiers.
Kites feast laboriously; every termite is
individually seized with the talons, and
then disposed of by the beak.) If evening
is setting in, bats and even frugivorous
fying-fOxes join in the revel, and termites
are devoured in myriads. Turn again to
the hole whence the last termite has emery
ed, and You win find the workers busily
engaged in plastering it up again, and de-
stroying all traces Of the fight The few
survivors of the swarm seek the earth, drop
their wings, and disappear The dropping
of the winds is marvellous process two
pair, with all their machinery of blood-yes-
sels, nerves, and ligaments, are instanta-
neously dispensed with, and TIE insect
seems livelier than before and this mutt
latiOn occurs precisely at the exact moment
Seize a teFmite by the wings at the wrong
moment, and he win struggle violently to
escape, the wings remaining firm in your
grasp. Seize it at the right moment, and
you viii see it lift its body upward and
backward like an earwig, deliberately I'M
hook its wings, and so escape