PSEUDONEUROPTERA. 143 



interior completely, until but an empty shell is left, although the exterior appears 

 unhurt, until some unusual shock or service causes them to fall to pieces. The annoy- 

 ance from these insects in warm countries is increasing, and it is almost impossible to 

 prevent their attacks. 



Regarding the mischief done in houses by an African species ( Termes arborum) 

 Smeathman has given full particulars. This species builds in trees, and often estab- 

 lishes its nests in the roofs and other parts of houses. The entry of these white ants 

 is difficult to guard against, since they make their approaches chiefly underground, 

 descending below the foundations of houses and stores at several feet below the surface, 

 and extending their mines into the floors, or entering at the bottoms of the posts of 

 Avhich the sides of the buildings are built, following the course of the fibres to the 

 top. " While some are employed in gutting the posts, others ascend from them, enter- 

 ing a rafter or some other part of the roof." Again writes Smeathman : " They 

 sometimes, in carrying on this business, find, I will not pretend to say how, that the 

 post has some weight to support, and then if it is a convenient track to the roof, oi- 

 ls itself a kind of wood agreeable to them, they bring their -mortar and fill all or most 

 of the cavities, leaving the necessary roads through it, and as fast as they take away 

 the wood replace the vacancy with that material ; which being worked together by 

 them closer and more compactly than human strength or art could ram it, when the 

 house is pulled to pieces, in order to examine if any of the posts are fit to be used 

 again, those of the softer kinds are often found reduced almost to a shell, and all, or 

 a greater part, transformed from wood to clay, as solid and as hard as many kinds of 

 freestone used for building in England. It is much the same when the Termites betti- 

 cosi get into a chest or trunk containing cloaths and other things ; if the weight above 

 is great, or they are afraid of ants or other enemies, and have time, they carry their 

 pipes through, and replace a great part with clay, running their galleries in various 

 directions. . . . These insects are not less expeditious in destroying the shelves, wain- 

 scoting, and other fixtures of a house, than the house itself. They are forever 

 piercing and boring, in all directions, and sometimes go out of the broad side of one 

 post into that of another joining to it ; but they prefer, and always destroy the softer 

 substances the first, and are particularly fond of pine and fir boards, which they exca- 

 vate and carry away with wonderful dispatch and astonishing cunning : for, except a 

 shelf has something standing upon it, as a book, or anything else which may tempt 

 them, they will not perforate the surface, but artfully preserve it quite whole, and eat 

 away all the inside, except a few fibres which barely keep the two sides connected 

 together, so that a piece of an inch-board which appears solid to the eye will not 

 weigh much more than two sheets of pasteboard of equal dimensions, after these 

 animals have been a little while in possession." 



In St. Helena they have been known to seriously injure a collection of books. It 

 has also been stated that a Spanish man-of-war, recently returned from the Philippines, 

 was completely destroyed by a species of Termes, in the port of Ferrol. 



The body of the wingless individuals are not only ant-like, but there is a general 

 resemblance in the winged males and females to ants, though the body is much larger 

 and flatter. They differ decidedly, however, from ants in the shape and structure of 

 the wings ; these are very large and long, straight and rather narrow, and finely veined, 

 while the hinder wings are not, as in ants, much smaller than the front ones, but both 

 pairs are of the same size, with the veins and veinlets arranged in the same manner in 

 both. The head is of moderate size except in the workers, where it is often of enor- 



