Phinn was frantic, and upon lowering his inexpressibles we found the centipede about four inches long which had bitten him. A little brandy rubbed on the part soon relieved the pain.
CHAPTER VIII. Observations on Nature in the Tropics - The Dung Beetle - The Mason-fly - Spiders - Luminous Insects - Efforts of a Naturalist - Dogs Worried by Leeches - Tropical Diseases - Malaria - Causes of Infection - Disappearance of the "Mina" - Poisonous Water - Well-digging Elephants.
How little can the inhabitant of a cold or temperate climate appreciate the vast amount of "life" in a tropical country. The combined action of light, heat and moisture calls into existence myriads of creeping things, the offspring of the decay of vegetation. "Life" appears to emanate from "death" - the destruction of one material seems to multify the existence of another - the whole surface of the earth seems busied in one vast system of giving birth.
An animal dies - a solitary beast - and before his unit life has vanished for one week, bow many millions of living creatures owe their birth to his death? What countless swarms of insects have risen from that one carcase! - creatures which never could have been brought into existence were it not for the presence of one dead body which has received and hatched the deposited eggs of millions that otherwise would have remained unvivified.
Not a tree falls, not a withered flower droops to the ground, not a fruit drops from the exhausted bough, but it is instantly attacked by the class of insect prepared by Nature for its destruction. The white ant scans a lofty tree whose iron-like timber and giant stem would seem to mock at his puny efforts; but it is rotten at the core and not a leaf adorns its branches, and in less than a year it will have fallen to the earth a mere shell; the whole of the wood will have been devoured.
Rottenness of all kinds is soon carried from the face of the land by the wise arrangements of Nature for preserving the world from plagues and diseases, which the decaying and unconsumed bodies of animals and vegetables would otherwise engender.
How beautiful are all the laws of Nature! how perfect in their details! Allow that the great duty of the insect tribe is to cleanse the earth and atmosphere from countless impurities noxious to the human race, how great a plague would our benefactors themselves become were it not for the various classes of carnivorous insects who prey upon them, and are in their turn the prey of others! It is a grand principle of continual strife, which keeps all and each down to their required level.
What a feast for an observant mind is thus afforded in a tropical country! The variety and the multitude of living things are so great that a person of only ordinary observation cannot help acquiring a tolerable knowledge of the habits of some of the most interesting classes. In the common routine of daily life they are continually in his view, and even should he have no taste for the study of Nature and her productions, still one prevailing characteristic of the insect tribe must impress itself upon his mind. It is the natural instinct not simply of procreating their species, but of laying by a provision for their expected offspring. What a lesson to mankind! what an example to the nurtured mind of mail from one of the lowest classes of living things!
(Editor：two)