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their approaches under ground, penetrating beneath the 

 foundation of houses or areas, and rising again either 

 through the floors, or by entering the bottom of the posts 

 that support the building, when they follow the course of 

 the fibres, and make their way to the top, boring holes and 

 cavities in diiferent places, as they proceed. Multitudes 

 enter the roof, and intersect it with pipes or galleries, 

 formed of wet clay ; which serve for passages in all direc- 

 tions, and enable them more readily to fix their habitations 

 in it. They prefer the softer woods, such as pine and fir, 

 which they hollow out with such nicety, that they leave 

 the surface whole, after having eaten away the inside. A 

 shelf or plank attacked in this manner, looks solid to the 

 eye, when, if weighed, it will not out-balance two sheets 

 of pasteboard of the same dimensions. It sometimes 

 happens that they carry this operation so far on stakes in 

 the open air, as to render the bark too flexible for their 

 purpose ; when they remedy the defect by plastering the 

 whole stick with a sort of mortar which they make with 

 clay ; so that, on being struck, the form vanishes, and the 

 artificial covering falls in fragments on the ground. In 

 the woods, when a large tree falls from age or accident, 

 they enter it on the side next the ground, and devour it at 

 leisure, till little more than the bark is left. But in this 

 case they take no precaution of strengthening the outward 

 defence, but leave it in such a state as to deceive an eye 

 unaccustomed to see trees thus gutted of their insides : and 

 " you may as well," says Mr. Smeathman, " step upon a 

 cloud." It is an extraordinary fact, that when these crea- 

 tures have formed pipes in the roof of a house, instinct 

 directs them to prevent its fall, which would ensue from 

 their having sapped the posts on which it rests ; but as 

 they gnaw away the wood, thej fill up the interstices with 

 clay, tempered to a surprising degree of hardness ; so that, 

 when the house is pulled down, these posts are transformed 

 from wood to stone. They make the walls of their gal- 

 leries of the same composition as their nests, varying the 

 materials according to their kind : one species using the red 

 clay, another black clay, and the third a woody substance, 



