A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



there are also mixed nests : in short, we find the greatest variety of 

 architectural forms. 



The termites make covered galleries from their nests to the 

 places from which they fetch their building-material or food. They 

 dread the light; indeed, a great proportion of their workers and 

 soldiers are blind. But in order that their activities may not be 

 wholly confined to the hours of the night, the termites build long, 

 branching galleries on the surface of the soil, which run up trees, 

 and enter rooms, ending on the planks of the floor, or against a 

 table, through which they eat their way, still further extending their 

 runs. If we destroy such a corridor the white insects appear imme- 

 diately and proceed to repair it, and in a little while the passage is 

 again roofed over. 



Neat and artistic though the nests and galleries of the termites 

 may appear, their building-material seems to us both strange and 

 repulsive. The Brazilian naturalist Fritz Miiller was the first to 

 observe the manner in which one arboreal termitary was repaired 

 when partially destroyed. At first a few soldiers appeared; under 

 their protection the workers came forward; they felt the breach, 

 and turned round, when each excreted a brown vermiform dropping. 

 Dung was here the building-material employed; and as a matter 

 of fact it is the material employed by the majority of the termites. 

 Now and again a termite regurgitates undigested material, but as 

 a rule it has already passed through the intestine of another termite ; 

 for these insects think nothing of devouring the dung of their 

 comrades. 



If, however, we look more closely into the origin of this building- 

 material it begins to seem less repulsive. If we cut off the abdomen 

 of a worker termite, we find that the intestine is always full of wood- 

 pulp or earth, according to the species. These substances are swallowed 

 only to be transmuted by the bowel into building-material, and we 

 understand that Nature has confided to the bowel of the termite 

 the work of preparation which we perform in a tub or pit when we 

 mix loam and water with the necessary mortar. Fritz Miiller's 

 observation, that the spherical arboreal nest of the termites is 

 really nothing more than the latrine of a whole termite nation, 

 need not, therefore, fill us with disgust, for the termite's excretions 

 have very httle in common with animal dung. 



Further, it must be noted that such nests are not built on the tree, 

 as would seem to be the case at first sight; on the contrary, they 

 grow out of the tree. Creatures of darkness, the termites emerge 



