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 front legs together as if praying, and sways about as it does so in an absurdly affected fashion, reminiscent of Thackeray's description of Charles Honeyman in the pulpit. CHAPTER XXIX THE INDIAN ASCETIC The fakir from Delhi. Mohammedan tombs. A visit to the fakir; his possessions; his manner of life; his temper; diminishing austerity; building his shanty; he settles down. Hindu religious community; their dress; how they beg; of both sexes; the community children; the _Guru_; opinions of the villagers concerning them.