534 PSYCHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



all other dead vegetable substances, and are therefore, as well as from 

 their being necessarily the most numerous portion of the community, 

 the most dangerous members of the society. For instance, the Termites 

 have a habit of gnawing all dead vegetable and animal substances 

 which they can reach, and so vexatiously to mankind that they merely 

 destroy its interior, leaving the external form unchanged. They thus 

 bore the balustrades of houses, excavate the planks of the floors, tables, 

 chairs, and all kinds of household furniture, and they frequently leave 

 so very slight a case remaining that the whole falls to pieces upon the 

 least touch. Man has therefore much difficulty in defending himself 

 from these concealed enemies, and finds his only means of escape in 

 leaving those parts inhabited by Termites unoccupied. The Termites 

 gnaw these objects chiefly to obtain thence the materials for their build- 

 ings, or even also for food. The building that they construct is often 

 of the shape of a sugar-loaf, and about twelve feet high, which gradually 

 grows from several small towers of the same description. When, for in- 

 stance, they have raised a small cone of about one or two feet high, they 

 lay around the foundations of several similar cones, which are contiguous 

 at their base ; these are then connected together by a thick wall, which 

 is continued by degrees in an oblique direction, until a cone of the 

 given size is thence constructed. Whilst they are still building, the 

 original small community inhabits the interior of the central cone; 

 this has in its middle an arched cell about an inch thick, which 

 is on the same plane with the ground, and in which the old male 

 and female live. In the circumference of this cell there are many 

 smaller ones for the soldiers, and around these again others for the 

 eggs and provisions, which consist of collected drops of gum, pieces of 

 wood, and other substances which they have found upon their desolat- 

 ing forays. When the large arch is completed they remove the apex 

 of the first cone, the entire surface of the described cells is flattened, 

 and here, as well as upon the walls of the arch, new cells are con- 

 structed for the provisions. Passages which run along the wall of the 

 arch lead to their upper cells, and bridges are sometimes constructed, 

 which spring from the surface above the royal cell, and extend to the 

 internal wall of the arch. The materials of which they form this 

 structure is clay and earth, which they artificially combine together, it 

 then speedily dries in the sun and becomes a hard, firm covering, that 

 in time is covered with grass, and will easily bear the weight of a man; 

 the internal cells, especially those for the eggs and provisions, are 



