Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 144.djvu/88

82 == INDIAN INSECTS. ==

all our knowledge of India, there are very many people who fail to realise the vastness of the change in all outward conditions of life which awaits him who chooses the East to be the theatre of his active life.

Few can count up in imagination the sum of the influences which contribute to that tired look we note in the eyes of the old Indian, and which account for his calm keen enjoyment of simple existence when he finally comes home.

The vision of the pagoda-tree has indeed faded away, and the leanness of the debased rupee is brought practically home to too many a struggling English family; yet there are still many who picture India as, for the most part, a land of many delights, where to the luxuries of the nabob have been added, in these latter days, the excitements and comforts of modern civilisation. And there are more both in East and West who, whether unduly attracted by an imaginary India or unduly repelled by the reality, overlook or undervalue the wealth of strange new things which lie close to the hand of every visitor to the East, and invite and reward his most careful study. I propose here to try for a moment to lift the veil from a phase of the everyday life of the European in India, so familiar to all who live in the East, that, like many another phase of what is now part of our national life, it is seldom the subject of notice.

People who have never travelled beyond Europe are altogether unprepared for the prominent part which is played by insects in tropical countries. It is one of the characteristic contrasts between East and West which the new-comer is left to find out for himself, as the comparative absence of insect-life is one of the blessings which the home-stayer cannot appreciate, not knowing his own freedom. In the sweet closed rooms of our cool Western homes the presence of an insect is a fact to be noted. A wasp or two in the height of summer, or a stray spider if the housemaid is careless, make up nearly the sum of such intruders. Even in our gardens, beyond worms and slugs, and in summer the aphis and a few harmless short-lived things, there is nothing that demands attention from anybody but the gardener. But under the burning Eastern sun insect-life is a thousand times more profuse – no passing phase of short summer months, but a perennial stream of life – while for the closed doors of Europe, we have houses riddled with doors and windows which, for the most part, stand open night and day.

Under such conditions it may be imagined that the insect world ceases to be a matter of indifference to man. All places are as much open to insects as to himself: they are ubiquitous, and of infinite variety; the warm sun fills them with life and energy; wide open houses invite them; and from the time he enters the tropics he cannot escape or ignore their presence.

India is indeed a world in itself, and its insect tribes, more numerous and more diverse than its climates and its races of men, are no less unevenly distributed. There are retreats almost free