Jungle By- Ways in India 



I had glanced on several occasions at a tall 

 grass stem close to me. I did not know why it 

 attracted me, but it did. I seemed to have a 

 sort of sub-conscious feeling that a portion of 

 it had moved, and this annoyed me just suffi- 

 ciently to make me keep half an eye upon it. 



Yes, there it was again ! It looked as if a part 

 of one of the dead yellow leaf-sheaths had moved 

 slightly up the stem it clasped. I looked more 

 carefully this time, but could see nothing. Sud- 

 denly a thought struck me, and leaving the 

 family party on the sal tree, who apparently 

 found the temperature rather colder than was 

 pleasing to them, I turned my full attention 

 to the grass-stalk which reared itself up some 

 10 feet or so above my head. 



Seeing my fixed stare in one direction, the 

 mahout thought I was on the tiger, and for a 

 time showed intense interest. This, however, 

 subsided, as he began to think the sahib was 

 daft. It required a lot of patience before that 

 grass stem showed any signs of life again, but it 

 did so eventually, and I saw my leaf -sheath 

 slowly beginning to move up the stem. To any 

 one with ^no natural history knowledge the 

 problem would have remained an insoluble one, 

 for the similarity of the moving grass piece to 

 the stem was exact. And yet that moving grass 

 piece was not grass, but an insect — one of the 

 stick insects. He also did not appear incom- 



