HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 511 



considerably to resemble a mushroom, and composed 

 interiorly of innumerable cells of various iigures and 

 dimensions. Others, as T. Destructor, F. ( T. Arho- 

 rum, Sm.) prefer a more elevated site, and build their 

 nests, which are of different sizes, from that of a hat to 

 that of a sugar-cask, and composed of pieces of wood 

 glued together, amongst the branches of trees often 

 seventy or eighty feet high. But by far the most cu- 

 rious habitations, and to which, therefore, I shall con- 

 fine a minute description, are those formed by the 

 Termesfatalis (T. belUcosus, Sm.), a species very com- 

 mon in Guinea and other parts of the coast of Africa, 

 of v/hose proceedings we have a very particular and in- 

 teresting account in the 7lst volume of the Philosophi- 

 cal Transactions, from the pen of Mr. Smeathman. 



These nests are formed entirely of clay, and are ge- 

 nerally twelve feet high and broad in proportion, so 

 that when a cluster of them, as is often the case, are 

 placed together, they may be taken for an Indian vil- 

 lage, and are in fact sometimes larger than the huts 

 which the natives inhabit. The first process in the 

 erection of these singular structures, is the elevation 

 of two or three turrets of clay about a foot high, and in 

 shape like a sugar loaf. These, which seem to be the 

 scaffolds of the future building, rapidly increase in 

 number and height, until at length being widened at 

 the base, joined at the top into one dome, and consoli- 

 dated all round into a thick wall of clay, they form a 

 building of the size above mentioned, and of the shape 

 of a hay-cock, which when clothed, as it generally soon 

 becomes, with a coating of grass, it at a distance very 

 much resembles. When the building has assumed this 



