222 INSECTS 



leaving anything about that is attractive to them. 

 Camphor, naphthahne, oil of sassafras, carbolic acid, 

 and oil of peppermint have all been employed with good 

 effect and, really, almost anything answers. Occasion- 

 ally they infest an old straw or corn husk mattress in 

 great numbers, and in such case the only real remedy is 

 the fire. Other members of this group composing the 

 order Corrodenlia or "gnawers," a branch of the great 

 Neuropterous series, are winged and live outdoors, as 

 indeed do many of the wingless species; but always 

 their food is dried animal or vegetable matter, so that 

 the only reason why any species occurs in our houses is 

 that the materials that they feed upon are found there. 

 Scarcely higher in development so far as structure 

 is concerned are the Termites, or "white ants;" but 

 though low in physical organization they are most 

 wonderfully developed en the social side, standing 

 scarcely inferior to the true ants. Termites are not 

 numerous in species anywhere in temperate or frigid 

 North America, and throughout most of our country 

 only a single species occurs or is at all common — the 

 Termes fJavipcs. In warmer countries and in the trop- 

 ics, the number of species is much greater, while in 

 Africa they have their point of greatest development. 

 In that country the insects themselves are house build- 

 ers, their habitations rising in many cases ten feet or 

 more above the surface in turret-like form and clustered 

 in great villages. But it is not with their peculiar or- 

 ganization nor interesting social life that we have to do 

 here; but with their habits when they leave their own 

 dwellings and invade ours. Yet to fully understand the 

 creatures and how they come to be with us at all, we 

 must know a little of their history. The popular term 

 "white ant" is derived from the pale, yellowish-white 

 workers of the common species, which are wingless, 



