]^EUROPTEkA, 405 



Many travellers have spoken of these insects. They are met 

 with in the savannahs of North America, in Guiana, in Africa, 

 in New Holland, and even in Europe, whither they have been 

 ! imported. M. de Prefontaine relates that, when he was travelling in 

 i Guiana, he saw the negroes besieging certain strange buildings, 

 which he calls ant-hills. They dared not attack them, except from a 

 distance, and with fire-arms, although they had taken the precaution 

 of digging all round them a little fosse filled with water, in which the 

 besieged would be drowned if they made a sortie. These were the 

 termites' nests. 



Perhaps it is to termites Herodotus alludes when he speaks of 



! ants which inhabit Bactria, and which, larger than a fox, eat a pound 



I of meat a day.* Retired in the sandy deserts, these gigantic insects 



'hollow out (says he) subterranean dwellings, and raise mounds of 



j golden sand, which the Indians carry away at the peril of their lives. 



j Pliny, who relates the same fables, adds that there were to be seen in 



j the Temple of Hercules the horns of these ants. Even in our own 



I days some travellers have repeated absurd fables about termites. 



They have attributed to them a venom which one cannot breathe 



li without being poisoned ; they have said that a single bite was enough 



I to cause a mortal fever. The truth, as it is revealed to us by 



ij conscientious observers, is still stranger than these fictions or errors. 



\ The termites present curious modifications, on the nature of which 



naturalists are not agreed. There are, in the first place, the perfect 



I insects, males and females, which are provided with wings ; then 



j there are the neuters, which are divided into soldiers^ whose duty it is 



I to defend the nest, and into loorkers, upon whom devolve the 



I architectural works and household cares. These last are smaller than 



! the soldiers. Latreille and some other naturalists think that these 



i workers are the larvae of the termites. Smeathman thinks that the 



soldiers are the pupae. M. de Quatrefages admits that the soldiers 



are the neuters, and that the workers are recruited both from the 



larvae and from the pupae. It may be admitted, with other naturalists, 



that the soldiers and the workers are neuters : the first, abortive 



males ; the second, abortive females. Here is, indeed, what M. 



Lespes has observed in the termites of the Landes. Among these 



insects, the most numerous are the workers : their size is that of a 



large ant, and their duties are to excavate galleries, to search for 



provisions, and to take care of the eggs, the larvae, and the pupas. 



* De (Quatrefages, "Souvenirs d'uu Xaturaliste," tome ii., p. 377. In iBmo. 

 Paris, i8t;4. 



