172 
material used in coating the incense sticks burned before 
shrines, or used in native shops. In Tamil these sticks 
go by the names of uthupaththi (2g) or sambiranik- 
kuchchi (#7979 onflé@e&) ; the best quality sells at the 
rate of 1 or 2 for 3 pies, while inferior sorts retail at from 
12 to 1 pie each. The operculum itself is called naganam 
or navanam (sree or steer); the usual rate is 2 
annas per palam (= 8 tolas or just over 3 07.). 
(7) ASSEMBLY CALLS. 
A call on a chank-shell is frequently employed upon 
native-owned plantations in South India and Ceylon to 
summon the workpeople to their duties: there can be no 
doubt that these long drawn out and penetrating booming 
calls are particularly well adapted to this purpose. 
In the Laccadive Islands all the inhabitants are 
required under penalty to attend the call of the chank, 
sounded in cases of emergency and public requirement. 
Among these are counted the beaching of boats and the 
inauguration of rat hunts. 
To conclude this account of the miscellaneous uses 
to which the chank is put and of which the foregoing 
summary has by no means exhausted the list, the follow- 
ing instance of the ingenuity of the Indian countryman 
may not be amiss. For it Iam indebted to Mr. C. A. 
Innes, 1.C.S. Apropos of a flight of winged termites, he 
told me that once when travelling in the Madura district, 
he chanced upon a low-caste man engaged upon some 
mysterious work on a large termite anthill: the man had 
a chank-shell in his hand. When asked what he was 
doing, he replied, ‘I am catching white ants to eat,” and 
gave a blast upon the chank at one of the major openings 
into the hill. Hardly had he finished ere crowds of ants 
sallied forth from other openings, and these the man 
scooped up in handsful and ate without any preparation. 
