120 BOMBAY DUCKS 
Nothing shoddy is turned out in Nature’s workshop ; 
even organs which will be used but for an hour are 
finished with the utmost care. The mayfly, the winged 
life of which endures not a whole day, could not be 
more accurately constructed were it intended to last for 
a thousand years. The mollusc, that spends its whole 
life buried in the mud at the bottom of the ocean, 
secretes for itself a most beautiful shell—a shell which 
man does not see to admire until it is cast up on the 
shore by the waves, long after its possessor has passed 
away. 
The birds and the lizards, however, care nothing for 
the workmanship of the wings of the termites. To 
them the insects are merely so many fatted calves 
waiting to be eaten. The day that sees the swarming 
of the termites is for the birds and the lizards a red- 
letter day, it is their jour de fan, the one day in the 
year when they are provided with more food than they 
can eat. 
Hagen tells of a swarm of termites in America where 
the insects formed a dark cloud, preyed upon by hundreds 
of birds, which so gorged themselves that they could 
not close their beaks! Yesterday the swarming of the 
white ants took place in the evening, so the lizards 
devoured the lion’s share. Many of these reptiles must 
to-day be suffering from internal pains similar to those 
endured by many a schoolboy on Boxing Day. Tiny 
little lizards were to be seen running about the walls of 
the bungalow, seizing and devouring termites not very 
much smaller than themselves. They found the wings 
most difficult to negotiate, and most ludicrous did they 
