202 WASPS DISCOVER PILFERERS. 



wise. Having caught a dozen or so of wasps, 

 lie clipped off their wings, and dropped them 

 into the jar of sugar-candy. The room was 

 open to all the servants, but nothing occurred 

 till the dusk of the evening, when one of them 

 going into the room ostensibly to bring some 

 tobacco for his master's hookah, was heard to 

 set up a fearful yell. The master at once knew 

 that his bait was taken, and, rushing into the 

 room Avith several servants, caught the pilferer 

 flagrante delicto, as with a handful of sugar- 

 candy he had grasped some half-dozen wasps. 

 Wasps, or dambos^ as they are called, and lain- 

 daJiaree damhos^ or hornets, were the plague of 

 our lives at Khyrpoor, as the walls of those old 

 houses, being full of cracks and crevices, har- 

 boured them in myriads, and I repeatedly suf- 

 fered from their stings, those of the JcundaJiarce 

 dambos causing quite as much pain as an or- 

 dinary scorpion sting. 



I also heard of another ingenious way of 

 detecting a pilferer ; the party who had been 

 robbed drove a wooden pin into the floor 

 of a dark inner room, and anointed it 

 thoroughly Avith a preparation of Hing, or 

 asafoetida ; he then assembled his servants. 



