572 INSTINCTS OP TERMITES, AND OF ANTS. 



which is their favourite food. If they find it, they bring up wet 

 clay, and build galleries through the roof in various directions, as 

 long as it will support them. In this manner a wooden house is 

 speedily destroyed ; and all that it contains is, at the same time, 

 subjected to the ravages of these destructive insects. In carrying 

 on this business, they sometimes appear to find, by some means 

 or other, that the post has a certain weight to support, and then, 

 if it is a convenient track to the roof, or is itself a kind of wood 

 agreeable to them, they bring their mortar ; and, as fast as they 

 take away the wood, replace the vacancy with that material, 

 which they work together more closely and compactly than 

 human strength or art could ram it. Hence, when the house is 

 pulled to pieces, the posts formed of the softer kinds of wood are 

 often found reduced almost to a shell ; and almost all of them 

 are transformed from wood to clay, as solid and hard as many 

 kinds of free-stone used for building in England. 



Of the true Ants, which belong to the Order Hymenoptera, a 

 general description has been already given ( 694) ; but it re- 

 mains to notice some of the chief points in the structure of their 

 habitation, and in their social economy. As among the Termites, 

 there are four orders in the community, the perfect males and 

 females, the workers, and the soldiers ; the workers and soldiers, 

 however, cannot be regarded as either larvae or pupae, since they 

 undergo the regular metamorphoses ; but they have neither the 

 wings nor the reproductive organs developed. As among the 

 other social Hymenoptera, they are neuters, that is, of no sex ; 

 but they most nearly approach the female. The soldiers of the 

 Red Ants of this country are nearly three times the size of 

 the workers, and their heads are larger in proportion ; those 

 of the Yellow Ant are about twice the size of the workers. In 

 describing the habitations of this race, it will be best to confine 

 ourselves to the latter of these species, which is very abundant in 

 our own country. Their hillocks are apparently made in a much 

 less elaborate manner than the dwellings of the Termites ; but 

 they are not less perfectly adapted to their required object. They 

 are composed of bits of stubble, fragments of leaves, small stones, 

 splinters of wood, &c., which are collected by the Ants, and laid 

 (as it might appear) promiscuously together ; but although 

 apparently a careless heap, the hillock is really a most ingenious 

 device for evading the eflects of wind and the attacks of enemies, 

 and yet more especially for receiving and husbanding the heat of 

 the sun. Its exterior always presents the appearance of a dome ; 



