OBSERVATIONS ON INSECT LIFE 175 



along the margin of the pool, insects start up from 

 the dried grass. Locusts tumble into the pool and 

 are swallowed by greedy frogs lying in wait upon the 

 surface. Smaller insects, in their efforts to escape, 

 fall a prey to a shoal of water-bugs and are suffocated 

 in the stream. Others, that escape the water, meet 

 their enemies in the air. The larger kinds may be 

 seized by insectivorous birds ; the robber-flies watch 

 for intermediate forms, and the winged ants or tiny 

 Diptera are pounced on by the dragon-flies that 

 methodically work along the stream. Spiders that 

 spin their snares across the pool live a life of continual 

 carnage. They destroy and they are themselves 

 destroyed. Insectivorous birds may spy them, or a 

 spider may drop too far upon its filamentous thread 

 and fall into the jaws of a ravenous frog, while down 

 below in ambush amongst the green weeds are the 

 patient crabs to whom the frogs themselves are prey. 

 It is a merciless and cruel battle between all the 

 inhabitants of the pool ; there is no rest from the 

 continual warfare, no prospect of peace. To each 

 occupant the little pool is a world and all the world is 

 at war. 



A few fish occupied the streams, but I observed 

 nothing of special interest in them. At the entrance 

 to the valley, however, was a sacred tank, thronged 

 with fish, so tame and so dependent on their owners 

 that they must be considered as domesticated 

 creatures. These fish are objects of veneration 

 amongst the Hindu Pandits. They may not be 

 captured, but I feel sure they are the common species 

 of mahseer, Barbus tor. The fish grow to a large size 

 and people the tank in such numbers that, were they 



