168 Short Papers and Notes. 
WASPS. 
The Indian wasp is a disappointing creature, without any of 
the deauté du diable of the wasp of our childhood, of which he seems 
to be but a dreamy image. Instead of the compact active creature 
we know so well, of brilliant yellow and black, the Indian wasp is 
long and thin of body, of a uniform pale-brownish yellow. Of lazy 
habit, his legs trail feebly after him as he flies; and though in 
reality no less venomous than other wasps, it is rather asa crawling 
intruder than as an armed enemy that he is pursued and killed. 
This is the wasp proper. But there is a tiny species of wasp, of very 
different habit, of which the Indian gardener soon learns to beware. 
Seldom noticed alone, and often not discovered till too late, this 
lively little creature loves to build bee-like combs in your favourite 
garden shrubs. Brushing past such a shrub in your walk, or trim- 
ming a luxuriant branch, you will quickly be made aware that you 
have trespassed on the preserves of an armed and revengeful 
tribe. Dashing out fearlessly in a body from the cover, and 
making straight for your face and neck and hands, they will sting 
you fiercely wherever the flesh is exposed, and will follow up the 
pursuit till you escape beyond their reach. The pain of the sting 
is sudden and severe, but not lasting, and in a few minutes the 
irritation passes away ; but it is severe enough to teach you to be 
on the watch henceforth for a new ambush in the garden. 
AN ARCH-FIEND. 
“TI should like to make your flesh creep” is the involuntary 
thought of one who essays to describe the Indian cockroach. In 
the daytime the cockroach lies hid, but no sooner are the lamps 
lighted than he wakes to his nightly career of ghastly play and 
plunder. On the first day of the voyage, you will kill one or two, 
and hope you are rid of them; but it was an idle feat—the place 
of the slain is quickly taken by others, and the reserve is inexhaus- 
tible. Your cabin become untenable, and you resign it to the 
cockroach ; or, if you must sleep there, you hurry off your clothes 
in a fever of haste and dash into the shelter of your curtains, where 
you hope for peace, and, if proper care is taken, may find it. If 
you sleep without curtains, tradition has it that the cockroach will 
feed on your nails and eyebrows. But besides this arch-fiend 
there are other varieties of the cockroach, differing from him and 
each other in shape and colour, and only less insufferable because 
less aggressive. But of whatever form or size or colour, the cock- 
roach, whose acquaintance is forced on every man who treads the 
soil of India, is of all created insects the most repulsive, but 
unfortunately one of the most prolific. 
Concluding his paper the writer says:—A volume would not 
