THE WHITE ANTS. 



Vertical section, showing its internal arrangement. 25. View of 

 these habitations. 26. Contrivances in their construction. 27. Use 

 made of them by the wild cattle. 28. Used to obtain views to seaward. 

 29. Use of domic summit for the preservation of the colony. 

 30. Position, form, ^pd arrangement of the royal chamber its 

 gradual enlargement for the accommodation of the sovereigns. 31. 

 Its doors. 32. The surrounding antechambers and corridors. 33. 

 The nurseries. 34. Their walls and partitions. 35. Their position 

 varied according to the exigencies of the colony. 36. The continual 

 repair and alterations of the habitation. 37. Peculiar mould which 

 coats the walls. 38. The store-rooms for provisions the inclined 

 paths which approach them the curious gothic arches which sur- 

 mount the apartments. 39. The subterranean passages, galleries, 

 and tunnels. 40. The covered ways by which the habitation is 

 approached. 41. The gradients or slopes which regulate these covered 

 ways. 42. The bridges by which they pass from one part of the 

 habitation to another. 43. Reflections on these wonderful works. 



44. The tenderness of their bodies render covered ways necessary. 



45. When forced to travel above ground they make a covered way 

 if it be accidentally destroyed they will reconstruct it. 



1. OF all the classes of insects which live in organised societies, 

 the most remarkable after the bee are the family Termitinse, popu- 

 larly known under the name of white ants, though they have 

 little in common with the ant, except their social character and 

 habits. 



Much discordance has prevailed among naturalists respecting 

 their history and classification. They were assigned by Linnaeus to 

 the order Aptera, or wingless insects. More exact observation 

 has, however, proved this to be erroneous ; since, in the perfect 

 state, they possess membranous wings like those of the dragon-fly, 

 which being four in number, they have been more correctly 

 assigned to the order Neuroptera. Kirby regards them as forming, 

 together with the ants, a link between the orders Neuroptera 

 and Hymenoptera, being allied to the latter by their social 

 instincts. 



2. Scarcely less remarkable than the bee in their social organisa- 

 tion, they differ from that insect inasmuch as while the labours 

 of the latter are attended with no evil to mankind, but are, 

 on the contrary, productive of an eminently useful and agreeable 

 article of food, the Termites, so far as naturalists have yet dis- 

 covered, are productive of nothing but extensive and unmitigated 

 mischief. 



3. These insects live in societies, each of which consists of 

 countless numbers of individuals, the large majority of which are 

 apterous, or wingless. Two individuals only in each society, a 

 male and a female, or according to some, a king and a queen, are 

 winged, and these alone in the entire society are specimens of the 

 perfect insect. The general form of their bodies is shown in 



