Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/197

Rh elocutional antics in obscure reading-rooms is now exchanged for argumentative criticism of the measures of Government, at public meetings. It also takes to strictly religious and patriotic modes of life—disposes of its offspring in marriage, retires to "the original town," encourages indigenous art by using everything that is made in India, and generally dies at the age of sixty. The Va'quil dies, as a rule, in "fairly good circumstances," though it does not live so. Formerly it used to migrate into the mofussil immediately on coming out of the larva state, but the Collector and his brood of assistants having made the districts quite unendurable for it, the Va'quil seldom goes further than Poona on one side or Ahmedabad on the other.

As a chemical compound, the Va'quil may be analysed into butter, brass, and asafœtida.

Physiologically it takes after the kangaroo, and has much of that intellectual force which is believed to be derived from constant indulgence in vegetable marrow.