246 THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



destroy houses, and sometimes whole villages, when 

 deserted by their inhabitants, so that in two or three 

 years not a vestige of them will remain. These 

 insidious insects are not less expeditious in destroying 

 the wainscoating, shelves, and other fixtures of a house, 

 than the house itself; with the most consummate art 

 and skill they eat away the inside of what they attack, 

 except a few fibres here and there, which exactly suffice 

 to keep the two sides, or top and bottom, connected, 

 so as to retain the appearance of solidity after the 

 reality is gone ; and all the while they carefully avoid 

 perforating the surface, unless a book or any other 

 thing that tempts them should be standing upon it. 



" Koempfer, speaking of theWhiteAnts of Japan,gives 

 a remarkable instance of the rapidity with which these 

 miners proceed. Upon rising one morning he observed 

 that one of their galleries of the thickness of his little 

 finger had been formed across his table ; and upon a 

 further examination he found that they had bored a 

 passage of that thickness up one foot of the table, 

 formed a gallery across it, and then pierced down 

 another foot into the floor ; all this was done in the 

 few hours that intervened between his retiring to rest 

 and his rising." 



Most of this order are armed with some weapon of 

 defence. The Bee and Wasp have each a most for- 

 midable sting, with which they are able to inflict a 

 wound fatal to most insects. The Ants have a peculiar 

 secretion, consisting of formic acid, which they eject with 

 great force, and which has a very disagreeable smell. The 

 eggs of Ants when hatched produce a small grub, which 

 spins itself a sort of cocoon, and in this state it so much 

 resembles a grain of corn, that it has been mistaken for 

 it; this error has given rise to the supposition that 

 Ants store up corn for winter, whereas they never 

 eat corn, but the care they take of these larvae, 

 removing them from place to place, taking them up 

 in their mandibles and running along with them, has 

 been mistaken for the act of storing away grains of corn. 



