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Updated: June 13, 2025


On this sum he could have gone back to the Yangtse and retired for life a really wealthy man. He would have possessed a larger sum, had he not, on occasion, conservatively played che fa and fan tan, and had he not, for a twelve-month, toiled among the centipedes and scorpions of the stifling cane-fields in the semi-dream of a continuous opium debauch.

And when the earth has at length flooded its surface with this seething tide of life; when the air is filled with a thousand species of insects, and the forest-floor feels the heavy tread of the giant salamander and the light feet of spiders, scorpions, centipedes, and snails, and the lagoons and shores teem with animals, the Golden Age begins to close, and all the semi-tropical luxuriance is banished.

All insects, all birds, all fish, all quadrupeds. All two legged animals. All centipedes and all those in between. All forms of life have been assigned to our earth for a purpose, or have made a place for themselves in the vast scheme of things or are clinging parasitically to life after their assignments have been fulfilled or as their usefulness is drawing to a close.

The species found in Lombock is about the size of a small hen, and entirely of dark olive and brown tints. It is a miscellaneous feeder, devouring fallen fruits, earthworms, snails, and centipedes, but the flesh is white and well-flavoured when properly cooked. The large green pigeons were still better eating, and were much more plentiful.

They would see the frogs active enough then, creeping with wondrous dexterity among the leaves, and springing like a green flash upon their prey. Naturally, therefore, they do not catch thrips or mealy-bug or aphis; these are too small game for the midnight sports-man. Wood-lice, centipedes, above all, cockroaches, those hideous and deadly foes of the orchid, are their victims.

Every biting and stinging thing was there. The mosquitoes nearly devoured us, especially at night; while serpents, scorpions, centipedes, possessed the jungle. There also was the lair of larger game.

There seemed no scarcity of worms, wood-lice, centipedes, or beetles, but no earwigs could I see; and I was just about to give up the search when, lifting a piece of stone, I saw a small cavity, about as large as would contain a pea, and in it lay about twenty-six round, white eggs, hard-shelled and shining, of the size of a small pin's head.

From the high place on the trail where I was, they looked, in the distance, like nothing so much as columns of centipedes or files of ants all creeping slowly along the dikes of the rice-paddies toward the central place. It usually takes an hour for such a procession to cover one mile. The beating of shield and stick could easily be heard across the wide valley on that still morning.

'Stick sugar-mats and weevilly four-bins; and a breeding paddock of tarantulas and centipedes and white lizards to clear out. I WAS a bush hobbledehoy in those days, Joan. It's close on twenty years ago. Joan Gildea gave a little shudder. 'Don't remind me how old I am. There's the difference between a man and a woman. My life's behind me: yours in front of you. 'I don't know about that, Joan.

Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled about, leaving a trail of light behind them, and fireflies, darting to and fro, peopled the air and gave additional animation to the scene.

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