Part 13 (1/2)
The Southern Cross. Crocodiles. Fire-flies. Locusts; their ravages. Indian birds; they cannot sing; their plumage. The ”brain-fever” bird. Swallows. Peewits. Vultures. Crows.
Kites. Tameness of the birds.
In spite of the expression, ”a traveller's tale,” being equivalent to saying that a story is probably untrue, your confidence in the general veracity of the traveller is strengthened when you find that certain things are even more beautiful or strange than books of travel led you to expect. For instance, the Southern Cross is a glorious constellation and an undoubted cross, and entirely satisfying, so that you are not disturbed by the opinions of the few who say that it is disappointing. Whether you see it for the first time from the deck of the steamer in the Red Sea, or for the hundredth time high up in the air over the heathen City of Poona, as if it claimed victory over it, the sight is always equally inspiring.
The view of crocodiles lying on the mud-bank of a river in Bengal inspired confidence in the accuracy of early teachings, because they were so like the hideous monster in the picture hung on the nursery wall. A crocodile can see and breathe while the whole of its body is immersed in the water, because its eyes and nostrils are on a plane on the surface of the head. A person incautiously bathing, or dipping water out of the river, may be suddenly seized by a crocodile who, though on the watch, is buried in the muddy water and invisible. Every year a certain number of human lives are lost in this way. Cattle and other animals coming to the river-side to drink are dragged into the water and devoured. The Poona river, swollen to a torrent in the rains, and for the rest of the year reduced to a small stream, meandering along a stony and rocky bed, is not suited to the habits of a crocodile, and there are none.
The brilliance of fire-flies is quite beyond the description usually found in books. They flash hither and thither like tiny electric lamps, and they are so numerous in certain places at certain times that they might be supposed to be some organised scheme of fairy illumination on a large scale. Boys sometimes capture two or three and put them into a bit of muslin and carry them about as lamps, and the light they give is quite appreciable. The insect itself is a dull-looking little creature, apart from its luminosity.
Another astonis.h.i.+ng experience in which the reality at least equals the descriptions, is a visitation of locusts. When you hear for the first time the peculiar rustling sound made by the beating of the countless wings of the vast army which sweeps past in an unbroken stream for hours, you realise what an invasion of locusts really means. Military terms, such as ”army,” ”invasion,” are strictly applicable, because locusts come with a rush and determination, and a military precision, and an evident unanimity of purpose, which suggests the movements of soldiers under orders. This idea is accentuated when the head and body of the locust is of a bright red colour.
The rapid destruction which they cause has also been described with fidelity. They have jaws of great power, and when they take possession of a tree it is stripped in ten minutes or so. When locusts settle down on a group of trees, the colour of each tree is instantaneously changed from green to red, because there is practically a locust to every leaf. When they travel on again, the tree they leave behind them is bare as an English tree in mid-winter. Little can be done to arrest their progress. An ordinary garden may be protected to some extent by beating the trees with poles, and so driving off the locusts as fast as they alight. But to protect any large area in this way is impossible.
The natives try to frighten them by making a deafening din, beating tom-toms and tin cans, but it is doubtful whether the locusts pay any heed to these demonstrations. A few people amongst the lower castes eat locusts, but they are not sought after by Indians in general.
Monkeys, dogs, and some birds eat them, but their numbers are so vast that none of their enemies produce any appreciable diminution.
In the Indian world of nature the sweet melody of the birds of England is absent. No Indian bird knows how to sing. Some make a brave attempt, but they break down after the third note. The so-called Indian nightingale only deserves its name because its performance is a shade less disappointing than that of the rest. Nor do the birds compensate for their lack of musical power by the splendour of their plumage. It is generally supposed that plants and animals in the tropics must necessarily be brilliant in colour. But many English birds equal Indian ones even in this respect. For instance, the green wood-p.e.c.k.e.r with his red crest is scarcely less gorgeous than the green parrot, and the kingfisher only comes behind its Indian relative in size. The plumage of the golden oriole is certainly sumptuous, and brilliant suns.h.i.+ne has, of course, the effect of showing off colour to the best advantage.
Though Indian birds cannot sing, they shout, and scream, and whistle.
What is known amongst English residents as the ”brain-fever” bird, is common in some districts. He makes a series of sounds, thought by some to resemble this word, over and over again with increasing rapidity and shrillness, until he breaks down and begins afresh. To people actually suffering from the ordinary fever so common in India he is sometimes a serious annoyance, because it is almost impossible not to follow him mentally in his incessant repet.i.tion of ”brain fever.” To a few fortunate people his peculiar note does not suggest these words.
Even the Indian sparrow drowns conversation with his shrill chirp, taking advantage of the ever-open doors and windows to invade the bungalow, and making determined efforts to make his nest in the most inconvenient places.
The swallows which build in the verandah are like old friends, and are always welcome. The curious cry which they make as they wheel in and out of the verandah in the last few minutes before they plunge into bed under the eaves, sounds almost melodious by contrast with the strange noises made by other birds. There is also a species of peewit who utters a rather pretty call, which might be supposed to be the Marathi version of what the English peewit says.
Vultures are as uncanny-looking as they are painted, and to see them waiting on the trees near the erections where Pa.r.s.ees put out their dead to be devoured, is not a pleasant sight. They also sit and watch near the Hindu burning-grounds, which suggests the uncomfortable idea that pickings are to be had there also. The rapidity with which they collect from all parts and swoop down upon the dead carcase of an animal is astonis.h.i.+ng to witness. Their value as scavengers is great, and in a very short time nothing is left of the carcase but bare bones.
Crows are also useful as scavengers. Nevertheless, they are a great nuisance, especially in Bombay. Their loud cawing is often most distracting; but they are also bold thieves, and do not hesitate to enter houses when they see their opportunity and to carry off any portable article which comes first to hand, even when it is of no possible use to them. Some of the birds of prey are beautiful objects, on account of their size, and the boldness of their flight. Kites wheel about in the air in large numbers around Poona. Since people carry almost everything upon their heads, a kite not unfrequently makes a sudden swoop and s.n.a.t.c.hes a prize out of the basket.
Few people are allowed a gun license, so that birds are less afraid of mankind than they are in England, and favourable opportunities constantly occur of observing them near at hand. A great variety may be met with in an ordinary country walk in the cultivated parts of India where food is plentiful. Although they cannot sing, many of them have quaint and charming personal characteristics.
CHAPTER XXVIII
INSECTS IN INDIA
Noise of insects at night. Troublesome in the evening. The blister-fly. Bees. Wasps. c.o.c.kroaches. Ants in the bungalow.
White ants. Scorpions; their sting. Boys callous of the feelings of insects. Bugs. Spiders. Mosquitoes. The mosquito-net. Flies. The eye-fly. Insects resembling their surroundings. b.u.t.terflies. The praying mantis.
Amidst the many sounds of the restless Indian night, some far away, some near at hand, there is one which, when it commences, drowns all the rest. It is a harsh, metallic, rasping, shrill, unmusical sound.
It might seem as if it had to do with some machinery, except that it is unlike the sound of any machine that you ever heard. It begins in the room where you are sitting reading, or else out in the verandah, where you are enjoying the cooler breeze of evening. Loud as it is, you cannot locate it. At one moment you think it is up aloft amongst the rafters, at another moment it seems to be close by. It emanates from an uninteresting-looking brown insect, about an inch long, who makes prodigious jumps like a gra.s.shopper. One night when this din was so great that conversation was almost impossible, I was astonished to find that the insect was on the table, only a few inches away from my book, and I was able to see his method of making this sound. He was vibrating his h.o.r.n.y wing-cases with marvellous rapidity, producing such an amount of noise that, unless one had seen it in process of production, it would have seemed impossible that it could arise from such a humble source.
At certain seasons, and especially when it is warm and damp, the evening meal in the country is attended with difficulty because of the quant.i.ty 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 brus.h.i.+ng 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 thres.h.i.+ng-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.