208 



HABITATIONS OP ANIMALS. 



they are in the most violent bustle and agitation. If they get 

 hold of any part of a man's body, they instantly make a 

 wound, which discharges as much blood as is equal to their 

 own weight. When they attack the leg, the stain of blood 

 upon the stocking extends more than an inch in width. They 

 make their hook jaws meet at the first stroke, and never quit 

 their hold, but suffer themselves to be pulled away leg by leg, 

 and piece after piece, without the smallest attempt to escape. 

 On the other hand, if a person keeps out of their reach, and 

 gives them no further disturbance, in Jess than half an hour 

 they retire into their nest, as if they supposed the wonderful 

 monster that damaged their castle had fled. Before the 

 whole of the soldiers have got in, the laboring insects are all 

 in motion, and hasten toward the breach, each of them hav- 

 ing a quantity of tempered mortar in his mouth. ^This mortar 

 they stick upon the breach as fast as they arrive, and perform 

 the operation with so much despatch and facility, that, not- 

 withstanding the immensity of their numbers, they never stop 

 or embarrass one another. During this scene of apparent 

 hurry and confusion, the spectator is agreeably surprised 

 when he perceives a regular wall gradually arising and filling 

 up the chasm. While the laborers are thus employed, almost 

 all the soldiers remain within, except here and there one, 

 who saunters about among six hundred or a thousand labor- 

 ers, but never touches the mortar. One soldier, however, 

 always takes his station close to the wall that the laborers are 

 building. This soldier turns himself leisurely on all sides, 

 and, at intervals of a minute or two, raises his head, beats 

 upon the building with his forceps, and makes the vibrating 

 noise formerly mentioned. A loud hiss instantly issues from 

 the inside of the dome and all the subterraneous caverns and 

 passages. That this hiss proceeds from the laborers is appa- 

 rent ; for at every signal of this kind, they work with red^u- 

 bJed quickness and alacrity. A renewal of the attack, how- 

 ever, instantly changes the scene, On the first stroke, the 

 laborers run into the many pipes and galleries, with which 

 the building is perforated, which they do so quickly, that they 

 seem to vanish ; for in a few seconds all are gone, and the 

 soldiers rush out as numerous and as vindictive as before. \ On 

 finding no enemy, they return again leisurely into the hill, 

 and very soon after the laborers appear, loaded as at first, as 

 active, and as sedulous, with soldiers here and 'there among 

 them, who act just in the same manner, one or other of them 

 giving the signal to hasten the business. Thus the pleasure 



