The view of crocodiles lying on the mud-bank of a river in Bengal inspired confidence in the accuracy of early teachings, because they were so like the hideous monster in the picture hung on the nursery wall. A crocodile can see and breathe while the whole of its body is immersed in the water, because its eyes and nostrils are on a plane on the surface of the head. A person incautiously bathing, or dipping water out of the river, may be suddenly seized by a crocodile who, though on the watch, is buried in the muddy water and invisible. Every year a certain number of human lives are lost in this way. Cattle and other animals coming to the river-side to drink are dragged into the water and devoured. The Poona river, swollen to a torrent in the rains, and for the rest of the year reduced to a small stream, meandering along a stony and rocky bed, is not suited to the habits of a crocodile, and there are none. The brilliance of fire-flies is quite beyond the description usually found in books. They flash hither and thither like tiny electric lamps, and they are so numerous in certain places at certain times that they might be supposed to be some organised scheme of fairy illumination on a large scale. Boys sometimes capture two or three and put them into a bit of muslin and carry them about as lamps, and the light they give is quite appreciable. The insect itself is a dull-looking little creature, apart from its luminosity. Another astonishing experience in which the reality at least equals the descriptions, is a visitation of locusts. When you hear for the first time the peculiar rustling sound made by the beating of the countless wings of the vast army which sweeps past in an unbroken stream for hours, you realise what an invasion of locusts really means. Military terms, such as "army," "invasion," are strictly applicable, because locusts come with a rush and determination, and a military precision, and an evident unanimity of purpose, which suggests the movements of soldiers under orders. This idea is accentuated when the head and body of the locust is of a bright red colour. The rapid destruction which they cause has also been described with fidelity. They have jaws of great power, and when they take possession of a tree it is stripped in ten minutes or so. When locusts settle down on a group of trees, the colour of each tree is instantaneously changed from green to red, because there is practically a locust to every leaf. When they travel on again, the tree they leave behind them is bare as an English tree in mid-winter. Little can be done to arrest their progress. An ordinary garden may be protected to some extent by beating the trees with poles, and so driving off the locusts as fast as they alight. But to protect any large area in this way is impossible.