discard them unwisely when the nights are intensely hot. The
framework from which the nets depend is a frail counterpart of the
four-poster of the Victorian age. The net is usually tucked in under
the mattress, to prevent any possibility of the mosquito entering. In
places where mosquitoes abound they are troublesome by day as well as
by night, and they are specially fond of attacking the ankles of
persons seated at table.

Towards the close of the rainy season flies become numerous almost
everywhere, but especially in a native city like Poona, and they are
an unpleasant indication of its unsavoury condition. They fall into
your cup, the table is black with them, your food becomes a matter of
dispute between you and them. But out of doors, except at meal-time in
camp, they are not nearly so aggressive as the summer flies which buzz
around during a country walk in England. Though they could be
dispensed with without regret, they are probably of great value as
scavengers.

There is a very small fly which is popularly known as the "eye-fly,"
because it hovers in front of your eye like a troublesome person who
will not take a refusal. It apparently thinks that the pupil is the
entrance into some desirable chamber. Fortunately it rarely gets
beyond the stage of prospecting this supposed entrance. Now and then
it travels round to your ear and prospects there also. But though it
does so at a safe distance it makes an irritating hum, and it is so
small that attempts to flap it away are futile.

There are many striking instances in India of insects being protected
from their enemies by their likeness in colour and markings to the
tree or plant on which they feed. The most noteworthy example of this
is a long insect, so precisely similar to a bit of dry stick that,
until you actually see it walk, you can hardly believe that it can be
anything else.

Butterflies, in the Poona district at any rate, are disappointing.
They are larger than the English ones--the scale of most things in
India is big--but their colours are not strikingly brilliant. Some of
the large moths are handsome, but not more so than many of the English
nocturnal moths.

The most comical insect is the praying mantis. It is of a fresh green
colour, often three or four inches long, and something like a
grasshopper in appearance. When it alights on your table in the
evening, attracted by the lamp, it behaves in a seemingly ridiculous
way. It puts its long fr