tion given by Mr. Smeathman, which I have thought it more interesting to introduce with 

 the descriptions of those insects in the second volume.) 



The termites are another genus of insects, which some time or other injure the traveller, 

 and at least add to the number of his cares. These wonderful creatures were little known 

 till Mr. Smeathman developed their extraordinary history. They were generally supposed 

 to be a species of ant, and in consequence so fi-equently confounded with the natural history 

 of that great genus of insects, that it has thrown much obscurity into both. 



The ravages of these insects are so insidious, that travellers frequently suffer irreparable 

 damage before they are aware of them. When they are previously informed, the depreda- 

 tions of those insects may be greatly prevented ; but constant care and caution are required, 

 which is no small addition to the number of cares that a collector must always have upon 

 his mind. I shall not pretend to go any further into the history of this genus of insects, as 

 I must necessarily borrow it from my ingenious friend's very entertaining account of them, 

 published last year in the seventy-first volume. Part I. of the Philosophical Transactions, 

 to which I refer my reader. 



To these obstacles, Mr. Smeathman adds others, some of which we can have little idea 

 of in these climates. The Norivay rats are so numerous and so bold, that they will come 

 and feed by the side of the table at supper, and during the still hours of night, search 

 every corner for plunder, making a continual uproar, and often, in a kind of furor, carry 

 away small utensils, and other articles, which they can turn to no advantage either for 

 food or shelter. They are very mischievous to the naturalist's collection of plants and 

 seeds, tearing them and the books, in which they are kept, to pieces, as it were in wanton- 

 ness, and carrying away such as are edible, in which they are often assisted by the land- 

 crabs. These amphibious insects frequently make holes for themselves, or use those made 

 liy the rats under ground, and enter through the floors of the negroes' cottages. 



In the rainy seasons many small animals are apt to take shelter in the thatch ; amono- 

 others, various species of snakes, who most probably get there in pursuit of the rats. 

 Mr. Smeathman when on the African shore observed, that the former were very harmless ; 

 and, as he found the latter very mischievous and destructive, he would not suffer the 

 snakes to be killed or hunted out. The patient natives there, it seems, as well as the 

 rational travellers, are not without consolation amidst this heterogeneous crowd of inmates. 

 They see with pleasure the spiders always on the watch for the wasps and cock-roaches, 

 the last of which are intolerable. The lizards, again, attack all sorts of insects, the large 

 Tarantula, as it is called, not excepted. The lizards not unfrequently fall a prev to 

 the fowls, and the rats to the snakes. Hence lizards, rats, snakes, and land-crabs 

 occasionally serve as delicious repasts to the improvident inhabitants, who thus " thrive 

 under evil." 



Sometimes indeed the land-crab becomes, as in the West Indies, a part of the stock of 

 the provident and luxurious inhabitants, who inclose a small piece of ground in the manner 



