INSECTS AND GRUBS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 107, 1 November 1941, Page 8

INSECTS AND GRUBS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—l was interested to learn, from the paragraph headed "A Dangerous Reptile," in the News of the Day column of your issue of October 29, that New Zealand troops in the Middle East are supposed to be subject to the risk of being bitten by a crocodile during a bathe in the Nile. As a member of the Main Body in the 1914-18 war, I spent some five months in Egypt prior to the Gallipcyd campaign and during that period no white troops were permitted to bathe in the Nile. This embargo was not due to the risk of exposure to bites from crocodiles (none of. which, by the way, I ever saw there), but because the troops were informed of the danger of attack by a minute insect- or grub known as the "jigger." We were given to understand that the jigger was apt to burrow through the more tender portions of a white man's skin and thus bring about a distressing and inflammatory condition. Even when swimming our hors.es in the Nile we were not allowed to enter the water with them. I believe that the somewhat slang term, "Well, I'm jiggered" owes its origin to the activities of the jigger, but I cannot vouch for this. It is cheering to learn, however, that the New Zealanders who are now in the Middle East are supposedly enjoying cooling bathes in the Nile (despite the risk of crocodile bites) which were denied their fathers and uncles in 1914-18.—I am, etc., '

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