INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 207 



not content with devouring meat^ clothes, and books, even at- 

 tacks persons in their sleep, and the extremities of the dead 

 and dying. ^ 



The house-cricket may perhaps be deemed a still more 

 annoying insect than the common cock-roach, adding an 

 incessant noise to its ravages; since, although for a short 

 time, it may not be unpleasant to hear 



" the cricket chirrup in the hearth," 



so constant a din every evening must very much interrupt 

 comfort and conversation. These garrulous animals, which 

 live in a kind of artificial torrid zone, are very thirsty souls, 

 and are frequently found drowned in pans of water, milk, 

 broth, and the like. Whatever is moist, even stockings or 

 linen hung out to dry, is to them a honne houche ; they will 

 eat the scummings of pots, yeast, crumbs of bread, and even 

 salt, or any thing within their reach. Sometimes they are so 

 abundant in houses as to become absolute pests, flying into 

 the candles and into people's faces. 



At Cuddapa, in the ceded districts to the northward of 

 Mysore, Captain Green was much annoyed by a jumping 

 insect, which, from his description, I should take for the larva 

 of a species of cricket. They were of a dun colour, and 

 from half to three fourths of an inch in length. They 

 abounded at night, and were very injurious to papers and 

 books, which they both discoloured and devoured ; leather 

 also was eaten by them. Such was their boldness and 

 avidity, that they attacked the exposed parts of the body 

 when you were asleep, nibbling the ends of the fingers, 

 particularly the skin under the nails, which was only dis- 

 coverable by a slight soreness that succeeded. So great was 

 their agility that they could seldom be caught or crushed. 

 They were a mute insect, but probably the imago would 

 make noise enough. 



But the white ants, wherever they prevail, are a still worse 

 plague than either of these insects — they are the great 

 calamity, as Linne terms them, of both the Indies. When 



1 Drury's Insects, iii. Preface. 



