180 THE UNIVERSE. 



Leone, on returning to one's house after a short absence, 

 only the ghost of the furniture is to be found. The ex- 

 terior still possesses all its freshness, but the substance is 

 gone, and every piece that is hollowed out falls to powder 

 beneath the hand of any one who touches it, or under the 

 weight of any one who sits down upon it. 



Instead of these conical domes ornamented with turrets 

 grouped together in villages in the middle of the plains, 

 some species of this group, such as the tree termite, prefer 

 to suspend their nests amid the large branches of the 

 strongest trees. These aerial masses, mingling with the fo- 

 liage of the trees, are very striking, for some of them are 

 larger than a hogshead. The nests, which are extremely 

 porous, present inside an inextricable labyrinth of tortuous 

 canals ; they are formed of a matrix or compact paste, com- 

 posed of fine particles of wood, gum, and juices of plants. 



For some years past two species of this kind have been 

 established in France, and have caused very serious havoc 

 in some of the southern departments ; they are the light- 

 shunning termite and the heath termite. Their introduc- 

 tion does not seem to date further back than 1780. 



The devouring cohorts of the light-shunning termite 

 have invaded Rochefort, La Rochelle, and Aix, where they 

 have completely undermined a number of houses, and en- 

 tirely ruined them. At one time these destructive pests 

 set to work to gnaw the prefecture of La Rochelle and the 

 archives, without any person suspecting it; wainscoting, 

 pasteboard, papers, were all annihilated without any ex- 

 ternal sign of this havoc appearing. At present the papers 

 of the bureaux are only preserved by keeping them in 

 zinc boxes. 



