414 THE INSECT WORLD. 



uninhabited, and which they had completely undermined. In 1804, j? 

 Latreille relates, as a "hearsay," that the termites had for some years i'^ 

 made the inhabitants of Rochefort uneasy; but in 1829 the same 

 author tells a very different tale. He speaks with dismay of the 

 ravages committed by this insect in the workshops belonging to the 

 Royal Navy. The importation of the termes into France is then of 

 recent date. A note which was sent to M. de Quatrefages by ' 

 M. Beltremieux, fixes with still greater accuracy the date of the 

 importation of the termites; it must have taken place about 1780, a 

 period at which the brothers Poupet, rich shipowners, caused bales 

 of goods to come from St. Domingo to Rochefort, to La Rochelle, 

 and to other places in that neighbourhood which possess storehouses. 

 The ravages which the termites have committed in the towns of La f J^ 

 Saintonge are really frightful. Like Valencia, in New Granada, these ' 

 towns will find themselves one of these days suspended over cata- 

 combs. At Tournay-Charente, the floor of a dining-room fell in, and 

 the Amphytrion and his guests tumbled together in the cellar. There 

 may be seen in the galleries of the Museum of Natural History of 

 Paris the wooden columns which supported this room, and which 

 were preserved by Audouin, who had been sent on a mission to 

 report on the damages done. Audouin also selected, as an object of 

 curiosity, a lady's bridal veil, which had been entirely riddled with 

 holes by the termites. 



At La Rochelle these insects took possession of the Prefect's 

 house (built by the brothers Poupet), and of the Arsenal. There 

 they invaded offices, apartments, court, and garden. They could not 

 drive in a stake, or leave a plank in the garden, but it was attacked ., 

 the next day. One fine morning the archives of the department wereic 

 found destroyed, without there being the smallest trace of the damage ' 

 to be seen on the exterior. The termites had mined through the 

 wood-work, pierced the card-board, eaten up the parchments and the 

 papers of the administration, but had always scrupulously respected the 

 upper leaf and edges of all the leaves. It was by mere chance that a 

 clerk, less superficial than his colleagues, one fine day raised one of 

 the leaves which hid this detritus, and thus discovered the destruction 

 of the archives. All the papers of the Prefecture are now shut up 

 in boxes of zinc. 



These termites do not venture, any more than their congeners, 

 into the light of day. These terrible miners always envelop them- 

 selves in obscurity, and construct on all sides covered galleries as 

 they advance into a building. M. Blanchard and M. de Quatrefages 

 saw in La Rochelle the galleries made by them. They are tubes 



I 



