FLIES AND CRICKETS 59 



with blue-bottles the moment our food was brought 

 in, so we encouraged the larger sort of spider to live 

 there and one old fellow who lived under the corner 

 of the table used to come out at meal times and take 

 his toll of flies, and in the course of time he became so 

 tame that he w^ould take a living fly out of your lingers. 



At the same time, and indeed during the whole 

 of our stay in the country, we were greatly annoyed 

 by the depredations of very large crickets. Not content 

 with making a most distracting noise by night these 

 horrible creatures did endless damage to our eatable 

 possessions. They invaded the sacks in which w-e kept 

 our scanty garments, socks, vests and the like, and 

 riddled them into holes, and they appeared to have a 

 special partiality for sponges and brushes, which they 

 devoured completely. Even more serious were their 

 attacks on folded tents or sacks of rice and flour, which 

 had to be constantly taken out of the store houses and 

 repaired. When these things were taken out of the 

 house a large number of crickets were taken out too, 

 and then was the chance for the Kingfishers {Halcyon 

 sandus) w^hich darted dow-n and snapped them up. A 

 pair of these beautiful little birds haunted the camp 

 and became so tame that they would fly down from 

 the roof of a house and pick up a cricket within a foot 

 or two of a man. 



When the ground had been well cleared and levelled, 

 we set about the business of building barracks for the 

 men and store houses for the provisions and equipment. 

 The Dutch contingent had brought with them regula- 

 tion army barrack frames, pieces of seasoned wood of 



