NATURAL HISTORY STUDIES 



which then stop sprouting. When the seeds are 

 thoroughly dry and dead, they are taken back again 

 to the nest and chewed into a dough. This is baked 

 in the sun into minute biscuits, which are stored. 

 Here is an industry that comes very near to cooking. 

 One of the most extraordinary habits of the ter- 

 mites or white ants, so abundant in warm countries, 

 is that about thirty different species feed on moulds 

 which are grown within the termitary on specially 

 constructed maze-like beds of chewed wood. The 

 fungi are believed to afford a supply of nitrogenous 

 material which is scarce in the termite's ordinary 

 diet of wood. It is interesting that a similar habit 

 of growing moulds occurs in some of the true ants 

 which belong to quite a different order of insects. 

 And a similarly puzzling convergence is illustrated 

 by the fact that termites, like true ants, often have 

 boarders in their hills, mostly small beetles, neither 

 hostile intruders nor parasites, but guests which are 

 fed and cared for apparently on account of a palat- 

 able exudation, with a pleasant narcotizing effect on 

 the termites ! 



Making Shelters 



After the industry of securing food, which has 

 so many forms, may be ranked that of making 

 shelters, including clothes. Although Carlyle and 

 others have pointed out that man is the only clothed 

 animal, the point is debatable. It is difficult 

 not to regard as clothing the cocoon of a silk-worm 

 or the case of a caddis -fly, and there are crabs 

 which fix seaweeds on their backs, or cut off 



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