744 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



idea will be formed of the magnitude of the operations of these insects 

 and the extent of their influence upon the soil which they are thus 

 ceaselessly transporting from underneath the ground. 



In traveling through the great forests of the Rocky Mountains or 

 of the Western States, the broken branches and fallen trunks strewing 

 the ground breast-high with all sorts of decaying litter frequently 

 make locomotion impossible. To attempt to ride through these West- 

 ern forests, with their mesh-work of interlocked branches and decaying 

 trunks, is often out of the question, and one has to dismount and drag 



"useful to the sportsman." 



his horse after him as if he were clambering through a wood-yard. 

 But in an African forest not a fallen branch is seen. One is struck at 

 first by a certain clean look about the great forests of the interior, a 

 novel and unaccountable cleanness, as if the forest-bed was carefully 

 swept and dusted daily by unseen elves. And so, indeed, it is. Scav- 

 engers of a hundred kinds remove decaying animal matter from the 

 carcass of the fallen elephant to the broken wing of a gnat eating it, 

 or carrying it out of sight, and burying it in the deodorizing earth. 

 And these countless millions of termites perform a similar function for 

 the vegetable world, making away with all plants and trees, all stems, 



