Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/151

Rh pearance than in fact. Habit soon makes these sights and sounds so familiar that they are almost unnoticed, and caution becomes so habitual that accidents are rare. Against the minor insect tribes and other depredators you adopt precautions, and you think before you unroll a mat or thrust your hand into a dusty corner, and so avoid a sting. But one case of stinging by a scorpion occurred in our household, and no case of injury by a serpent.

I must not omit to notice a most formidable, though apparently insignificant insect, not yet mentioned—it is the white ant. This is a small, semi-transparent insect; in appearance most harmless, in reality most destructive. The habits of the white ants are peculiar. They live in houses partly under the earth, but frequently built up in hills two or three feet above it, and pierced in every direction with halls and galleries. They issue from their home in long lines, each one carrying a load of mud; with this they form a covered way about the size of a pipe-stem, under which they pass to and fro, extending their gallery. They do not cross a floor or climb a post except under this cover. In the morning you will find a line of hard brown clay commencing at an unseen hole in Rh