A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



cedented that it was a long time before even so great an expert as 

 Wasmann recognized the insects as flies. Their wings are long, 

 narrow, and curved. They serve not only as balancing-poles when 

 the insect is running; they are used by the termites as the handles 

 by which these living bottles are carried when their hosts wish to 

 enjoy a little orgy. The abdomen is enormously distended, for these 

 flies are given plenty to eat ; the termites see to this, for the excrement 

 of these insects is a delicacy to their hosts. Consequently they are 

 for ever feeding and cleansing their singular guests : by no means 

 to the profit of the community. The excrement of these flies is a 

 mere luxury, and it so intoxicates the termites that they forget their 

 duties for it. 



The reader will involuntarily compare the indulgence of the ants 

 and termites in such intoxicating juices with the consumption of 

 alcohol by human beings, and its enervating effects. And it is indeed 

 a remarkable fact that social life, which multiplies the achievements 

 of man, and gives the greatest possible protection to the indi- 

 vidual, should prepare the soil for the phenomena of degeneration. 

 It is as though Nature wished to remind us that even States are 

 not enduring phenomena in the eternal flux and change of terrestrial 

 affairs, but that the more secure they seem on the outside, the more 

 menacingly does the germ of destruction grow at their very heart. 



