Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/148

122 gry mosquitos will give you their company; with all your care a select band will manage to find some place of entrance, and torture your ears with their music as well as your body with their bites. In the morning you must shake out your shoes, so as not to intrude on any stray centipede, roach, or scorpion that may have ensconced himself there for the night. In the evening, at certain seasons, while taking your tea, a swarm of winged ants will make their appearance; they drop into your cup, become entangled in your butter, fill your plate, and enter your mouth; there is nothing to be done but to beat a retreat, leaving the table with its lights to the enemy. In the morning you will find the table strewn with wings which the ants have left behind them, marching off upon more humble limbs.

A small gnat, known as the eye-fly, is exceedingly annoying, especially to children. They manage, notwithstanding all your efforts, to get into your eyes, causing much irritation. A very distressing ophthalmia is supposed by the natives to be carried from one person to another by these minute creatures. The cockroaches which swarm in this country, though less trying than the eye-flies, are destructive to