It
is a common belief that the light of the glow-worm is used as a
lamp of love to assist in nocturnal meetings, but there can be
little doubt that the insect makes use of its natural brilliancy
without any specific intention. It is as natural for the
fire-fly to glitter by night as for the colored butterfly to be
gaudy by day.
The variety of beautiful and interesting insects is so great in
Ceylon that an entomologist would consider it a temporary
elysium; neither would he have much trouble in collecting a host
of different species who will exhibit themselves without the
necessity of a laborious search. Thus, while he may be engaged
in pinning out some rare specimen, a thousand minute eye-flies
will be dancing so close to his eyeballs that seeing is out of
the question. These little creatures, which are no larger than
pin's heads, are among the greatest plagues in some parts of the
jungle; and what increases the annoyance is the knowledge of the
fact that they dance almost into your eyes out of sheer vanity.
They are simply admiring their own reflection in the mirror of
the eye; or, may be, some mistake their own reflected forms for
other flies performing the part of a "vis-à-vis" in their
unwearying quadrille.
A cigar is a specific against these small plagues, and we will
allow that the patient entomologist has just succeeded in putting
them to flight and has resumed the occupation of setting out his
specimen. Ha! see him spring out of his chair as though
electrified. Watch how, regardless of the laws of buttons, he
frantically tears his trowsers from his limbs; he has him! no he
hasn't! - yes he has! - no - no, positively he cannot get him
off. It is a tick no bigger than a grain of sand, but his bite
is like a red-hot needle boring into the skin. If all the royal
family had been present, he could not have refrained from tearing
off his trowsers.
The naturalist has been out the whole morning collecting, and a
pretty collection he has got - a perfect fortune upon his legs
alone. There are about a hundred ticks who have not yet
commenced to feed upon him; there are also several fine specimens
of the large flat buffalo tick; three or four leeches are
enjoying themselves on the juices of the naturalist; these he had
not felt, although they had bitten him half an hour before; a
fine black ant has also escaped during the recent confusion,
fortunately without using his sting.
Oil is the only means of loosening the hold of a tick; this
suffocates him and he dies; but he leaves an amount of
inflammation in the wound which is perfectly surprising in so
minute an insect. The bite of the smallest species is far more
severe than that of the large buffalo or the deer tick, both of
which are varieties.
Although the leeches in Ceylon are excessively annoying, and
numerous among the dead leaves of the jungle and the high grass,
they are easily guarded against by means of leech-gaiters: these
are wide stockings, made of drill or some other light and close
material, which are drawn over the foot and trowsers up to the
knee, under which they are securely tied. There are three
varieties of the leech : the small jungle leech, the common leech
and the stone leech. The latter will frequently creep up the
nostrils of a dog while he is drinking in a stream, and, unlike
the other species, it does not drop off when satiated, but
continues to live in the dog's nostril. I have known a leech of
this kind to have lived more than two months in the nose of one
of my hounds; he was so high up that I could only see his tail
occasionally when lie relaxed to his full length, and injections
of salt and water had no effect on him. Thus I could not relieve
the dog till one day when the leech descended, and I observed the
tail working in and out of the nostril; I then extracted him in
the usual way with the finger and thumb and the tail of the coat.
I should be trespassing too much upon the province of the
naturalist, and attempting more than I could accomplish, were I
to enter into the details of the entomology of Ceylon; I have
simply mentioned a few of those insects most common to the
every-day observer, and I leave the description of the endless
varieties of classes to those who make entomology a study.
It may no doubt appear very enticing to the lovers of such
things, to hear of the gorgeous colors and prodigious size of
butterflies, moths and beetles; the varieties of reptiles, the
flying foxes, the gigantic crocodiles; the countless species of
waterfowl, et hoc genus omne; but one very serious fact is apt to
escape the observation of the general reader, that wherever
insect and reptile life is most abundant, so sure is that
locality full of malaria and disease.
Ceylon does not descend to second-class diseases: there is no
such thing as influenza; whooping-cough, measles, scarlatina,
etc., are rarely, if ever, heard of; we ring the changes upon
four first-class ailments - four scourges, which alternately
ascend to the throne of pestilence and annually reduce the circle
of our friends - cholera, dysentery, small-pox and fever.
