330 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xxvn 



intricate labyrinth ; some of them contain food, such as 

 raspings of wood and gum. These chambers are by no 

 means confined to the part of the termitarium above 

 ground, but extend into the earth below, and to parts 

 far beyond that occupied by its base. 



It is a remarkable feature of termites that the workers 

 and soldiers never expose themselves to light ; they 

 either travel underground or within trees and substances 

 they can destroy. When in search of plunder above 

 ground, their pathways are really covered- ways, for they 

 build tunnels of the same material of which the nest is 

 constructed. Whenever the termites make a covered- 

 way it has many ramifications, and if one of the covered- 

 ways be destroyed by violence there are many avenues 

 of escape without coming into the light. The galleries 

 are large enough to allow them to pass each other. 

 These insects are much disturbed when their covered- 

 ways are broken, and they quickly repair them, because 

 when termites appear above ground they are seized 

 and destroyed by ants. 



Some species of termites build nests in the tops of 

 trees, but the passages leading to the nest run up 

 the trunk of the tree under cover, so that the nest in 

 the tree-top is in connection with a nest of galleries in 

 the earth beneath. 



On one occasion I saw a grove of trees with all the 

 trunks covered with vertical lines of clay : of this 

 curious appearance I find the explanation in Smeath- 

 man's paper : : lf a piece of dead wood is covered with 

 sound bark, they will eat all but the bark, which 

 remains and exhibits the appearance of a solid stick. 

 If they cannot trust the bark, they will cover the 

 whole stick with their mortar and eat up the whole of 

 the wood. Thus, when a large tree has fallen from age 

 or violence, the termites will eat the woody part away, 

 and a traveller finding a large tree trunk in his path 

 steps upon it, when to his surprise it gives way and he 

 falls among the neighbouring bushes. In this way 



