GLOW-WORMS, TERMITES, SHELLS 227 



carnage. All nature appears set on their destruction. 

 Round about the nest the crows and mynas con- 

 gregate in hundreds, devouring the living morsels as 

 they emerge into the light. Those that succeed in 

 escaping into the air are seized by drongos, shrikes 

 or bulbuls that dart out from every tree. Swifts and 

 swallows meet them at higher altitudes, and kestrels 

 swoop down on them from above. 



I sat down beside a nest and watched the ants 

 emerge to take wing upon their fatal voyage. Thou- 

 sands of hungry birds were cackling and chattering 

 in an angry tumult or were darting and swooping 

 through the air. I carefully noted the fate of fifty 

 consecutive termites as they embarked into the sky, 

 but not one of them succeeded in travelling thirty 

 feet before it was devoured. On all sides could 

 be heard the incessant snapping of beaks and the 

 rustling of feathers. I could not see a single insect 

 escape. Not only were the insectivorous birds 

 devouring them, but the house-crows and jungle- 

 crows were snapping them on the wing, pariah 

 kites, both with feet and beak, were seizing them 

 in the air, and at one moment no less than six 

 kestrels were hovering over them or swooping on 

 them from above. A filthy scavenger-vulture was 

 swallowing them greedily from off the ground, and 

 those which I protected at the mouth of the nest were 

 being attacked by a host of carnivorous ants, to be 

 dragged again beneath the soil. Nor is the emergence 

 of the termites a mere event of the passing hour. 

 Its memory still lasts, for two days later the jungle- 

 crows were still congregated around the nest as 

 though in anticipation of a further feast. 



