XVIII 



THE TERMITES 



x\fter a long absence a householder returns home. He unlocks 

 the door, opens it, and sees with pleasure that all is just as he left 

 it. Contentedly he drops into the nearest rocking-chaii — an article 

 of furniture seldom absent from a Brazilian sitting-room — and finds 

 himself lying on the floor, with the debris of the chair strewn around 

 him, like fragments of touchwood. 



"'Cupim, que diabof" cries the prostrate man, angrily. And indeed, 

 the sight of the damage done by the "Cupim," the Termites, is 

 enough to drive one to despair. These insects, which abhor the light, 

 eat their way up from the floor into chairs and tables, but always 

 leave an outer layer, thin as a sheet of paper, so that they may still 

 remain in the dark ; and then they transform the furniture into mere 

 phantoms that collapse at a touch. Books too are difficult to preserve 

 in Brazil ; in all the Ubraries one sees the traces of these six-legged 

 miners. 



Nevertheless, one cannot but admire the industry and perseverance 

 of these little insects ; and one has many opportunities of doing so, for 

 in Brazil one comes upon the nests of termites at every step. In the 

 trees are large black balls, as big as a man's head (Plate 30), which 

 are made of wood-pulp, like the ants' nests of which I have spoken. 

 The material of these nests exhibits vermiform convolutions and all 

 sorts of little prominences : it is brittle, so that one can break off" 

 pieces with one's knife. But the Termites also build nests of earth. 

 On travelling by rail from Rio to Sao Paulo one sees, in many 

 districts, numbers of hillocks, more or less pointed, rising from the 

 ground. These consist partly of clay and partly of earth, or a mixture 

 of the two ; sometimes too masses of wood-pulp are added. These 

 hillocks attain considerable dimensions, although the BraziUan 

 termitaries cannot compare with the AustraHan, among which 

 turret-like nests twenty feet in height have been observed: the 

 largest examples of animal architecture known. Escherich justly 

 remarks that the achievements of these httle insects teach us con- 

 vincingly what a social sense and a communal Ufe devoted to common 

 labour can accompUsh. 



The Termites are much feebler and more dehcate than the Ants ; 

 they do not possess the solid armour of the latter, but are soft- 



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