Mr. T. 8. Savage on the Termitide of West Africa. 98 
The features which first strike the beholder are their great size 
and form. These have been well represented by Smeathman, 
though two hills cannot be found exactly like. Their contour is 
generally that of a hay-stack—the surface never regular, always 
marked with protuberances and upward projections, often not 
unlike “ turrets,” as termed by Smeathman. 
Sometimes the hill presents the aspect of a mound having 
been worn down by the heavy rains, or, if in the vicinity of a 
village, by children playing upon it. In such cases they may be 
forsaken. 
When they present distinct upward projections or turrets, they 
are known to be in the process of enlargement. This is always 
the mode in which these insects increase their domiciles. Turrets 
are projected one after another, and the intervening spaces filled 
out, so as to make a continuous surface. Within each of these 
turrets is a cavity which leads down as a passage into the inte- 
rior of the hill, or terminates in some other passage, keeping up 
a free communication throughout the structure. When hills 
present in their general outline the form of a hay-stack, they 
have arrived at their maximum size. Their height in such cases 
is from 12 to 15 feet perpendicular measurement, the cireum- 
ference at base from 50 to 60 feet; at two-thirds the height, or 
around the base of the “dome,” from 30 to 40 feet. 
The materials have for their base clay, generally strongly 
tinged with oxide of iron in the recent state ; after exposure to 
the sun and atmosphere it takes on a light colour, approaching 
a dull yellow, in some cases white. There is an admixture, more 
or less, of other substances incidentally occurring, as gravel, 
leaves, straw, &c. 
Sometimes the clay presents a dark, slaty aspect, which is in- 
correctly stated in books to be an indication of a different species 
of insect. This fact is owing to different-coloured clays exist- 
ing in different localities. 
The strength of these structures is incaleulably great; as an 
evidence of this, Smeathman states that they are often mounted 
by wild bulls, and four men were known to stand on one to spy 
a vessel at sea. But more than this, they would sustain more 
wild bulls and men than could possibly mount them. The particles 
of clay are cemented together by a fluid excreted from the mouth 
of the insect (not as Smeathman says, by gums elaborated from 
the different kinds of wood on which they feed). This, by ex- 
posure to the sun and atmosphere, becomes exceedingly hard and 
tenacious on the surface, added to which, the action of the well- 
known principle in mechanical philosophy involved in the arched 
form of the structure gives to it a vast degree of strength. This 
feature in the ceconomy of the Termes fatalis—the strength of 
