deep hole which they make, and so to cover them up that there is no man in the world who can turn them up, or find the place.[1]
31. There is also a kind of very small ants, white as wool, which have such hard teeth that they gnaw through even timbers and the joints of stones,[2] and, in short, whatever dry thing they find on the face of the earth, and mutilate woollen and cotton clothes. And they build out of the finest sand a crust like a wall, so that the sun cannot reach them, and so they remain covered. But if that crust happens to get broken, so that the sun reaches them, they incontinently die.[3]
32. As regards insects, there be wonders, so many, great, and marvellous, that they cannot be told.
33. There is also in this India a certain bird, big like a kite, having a white head and belly, but all red above, which boldly snatches fish out of the hands of fishermen and other people, and indeed [these birds] go on just like dogs.[4]
- ↑ This is the practice of certain solitary wasps and kindred species, both in Europe and India (see Kirby and Spence, Letter xi., etc.). The spiders, etc., form a store of food for the use of the larvæ when hatched.
- ↑ "Venas lapidum."
- ↑ The most remarkable operation of white ants that I have heard of was told me by a scientific man, and I believe may be depended on. Having a case of new English harness, which he was anxious to secure from the white ants, he moved it about six inches from the wall, and placed it on stone vessels filled with water (as is often done), so that he considered it quite isolated and safe. On opening the case some time after he found the harness ruined, and on looking behind he saw that the white ants had actually projected their "crust" across the gap from the wall, so as to reach their prey by a tubular bridge. Here is engineering design as well as execution! The ants have apparently a great objection to working under the light of day, but that they "incontinently die" is a mistake.
- ↑ ? "Et sic se ingerunt sicut canes." This appears to refer to the common rufous kite, abundant all over India. Of this, or a kindred kite. Sir J. E. Tennent says, "The ignoble birds of prey, the kites, keep close by the shore, and hover round the returning boats of the fishermen, to feast on the fry rejected from the nets" (Nat. Hist. of C. p. 246). The action described in the text is quite that of the Indian kite. I recollect seeing one
