252 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



twenty feet; "of compass," he adds, "to contain a dozen 

 men, with the heat of the sun baked into that hardness, 

 that we used to hide ourselves in the ragged tops of them 

 when we took up stands to shoot at deer or wild beasts."* 

 Bishop Heber saw a number of these high ant-hills in 

 India, near the principal entrance of the Sooty or Moor- 

 shedabad river. "Many of them," he says, "were five or 

 six feet feet high, and probably seven or eight feet in cir- 

 cumference at the base, partially overgrown with grass 

 and ivy, and looking at a distance like the stumps of 

 decayed trees. I think it is Ctesias, among the Greek 

 writers, who gives an account alluded to by Lucian in his 

 * Cock,' of monstrous ants in India, as large as foxes. 

 The falsehood probably originated in the stupendous 

 fabrics which they rear here, and which certainly might 

 be supposed to be the work of a much larger animal than 

 their real architect."t Herodotus has a similar fable of 

 the enormous size and brilliant appearance of the ants of 

 India. 



Nor is it only in constructing dwellings for themselves 

 that the termites of Africa and of other hot climates 

 employ their masonic skill. Though, like our ants and 

 wasps, they are almost omnivorous, jet wood, particularly 

 when felled and dr)^, seems their favourite article of food ; 

 but they have an utter aversion to feeding in the light, 

 and always eat their way with all expedition to the 

 interior. It thence would seem necessary for them either 

 to leave the bark of a tree, or the outer portion of the beam 

 or door of a house, undevoured, or to eat in open day. 

 They do neither ; but are at the trouble of constructing 

 galleries of clay, in which they can conceal themselves, 

 and feed in security. In all their foraging excursions, 

 indeed, they build covert ways, by which they can go out 

 and return to their encampment. J 



Others of the species (for there are several), instead of 

 building galleries, exercise the art of miners, and make 



* Jobson's Gambia, in Pm'clias's Pilgrim, ii. p. 1570. 



t Heber's Jom-nal, vol. i. p, 248. 



X Smeatliman, in Phil. Trans., vol. Ixxi. 



