FATAL ATTACK OF BEES. 269 



The old man was suflfering fearful agony from his bite, 

 and had nearly gone out of his mind ; and the narrator 

 described in graphic terms the horrors of his situation, in 

 a frail canoe, in a dark night during a severe storm, and 

 the momentary expectation of being capsized, his only 

 companion being a mad father lamenting over the body 

 of his dead son." * 



Even the most insignificant of creatures may be the 

 scourge of the most exalted. We have seen some examples 

 of insect pests in a former chapter, and of their ravages 

 and successful assaults against man ; but that he should 

 be actually slain in mortal conflict with a fly is something 

 unusual Yet last summer this happened in India. 



" Two European gentleman belonging to the Indian 

 Eailway Company, — viz., Messrs Armstrong and Bodding- 

 ton — were surveying a place caUed Bunder Coode, for the 

 purpose of throwing a bridge across the Nerbudda, the 

 channel of which, being in this place from ten to fifty 

 yards wide, is fathomless, having white marble rocks 

 rising perpendicularly on either side from a hundred to a 

 hundred and fifty feet high, and beetling fearfully in some 

 parts. Suspended in the recesses of these marble rocks 

 are numerous large hornets' nests, the inmates of which 

 are ready to descend upon any unlucky wight who may 

 venture to disturb their repose. Now, as the boats of 

 these European surveyors were passing up the river, a 

 cloud of these insects overwhelmed them; the boatmen 

 as well as the two gentlemen jumped overboard, but, 



* SulliTan's Rambles in N. and S. America, p. 409. 



