68 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
bored holes in the wall, which looked as if some 
one had amused himself by thrusting his finger into 
the adobes while still fresh and soft. They had a 
great enemy in the large house-spider, which springs 
on its prey from concealment, but spins no web. I 
had a tame spider for above a year, which used to 
come every evening for its supper of cockroaches. 
When I lighted my lamp, it would be waiting 
behind and upon the open door for the cock- 
roach, which — dazzled by the glare — I had no 
difficulty in catching with my forceps. Sometimes, 
after an hour or two, it would come back for a 
second cockroach. Once, as I offered it the cock- 
roach, I suddenly substituted my finger, which it 
seized, but immediately released without wounding, 
although this spider can bite severely when irritated. 
Next to snakes and spiders come the ants, which 
are so numerous, and so ubiquitous, that no one 
escapes them. Their stings are of all degrees of 
virulence, but rarely prove fatal. Many ants bite 
fiercely, but not venomously. I could fill many 
pages with my experiences of these pugnacious and 
patriotic marauders, and of the nearly-related wasps. 
I once sent an Indian up a tall laurel, a hundred 
feet high, to gather the flowers. At half-way up 
was the first branch, and a large paper wasps' nest 
in -the fork, hidden from view by the ample leaves 
of an Arad. As he passed it, the angry insects 
swarmed out, but he gained the top of the tree 
without a sting, broke off some flowering branches 
and threw^ them down. Unfortunately, there was 
no friendly liana by which he could slide down or 
pass to a neighbouring tree, and he must needs 
descend the way he ascended. He did so, through 
