328 Insect Architecture. 



observed in time, and expelled, occasions considerable damage. 

 It is easier, in fact, to shut one's door against a fox or a thief, 

 than to exclude such insidious enemies, whose aversion to 

 light renders it difficult to trace them even when they are 

 numerous. 



[There are also termites in Europe, and the city of La 

 Kochelle has suffered terribly from them. They eat the 

 trees in the gardens, and not a stake can be driven into the 

 ground, or even a plank left for twenty-four hours, without 

 being attacked. They also enter the houses and utterly ruin 

 them by eating every bit of timber that is used in them. 

 In one instance, where a room had been repaired, the stalac- 

 titic galleries of the termites showed themselves the very day 

 after the workmen had left the room. 



[They invaded the prefecture, and did exceeding damage, 

 one of their feats of voracity being so extraordinary as to 

 deserve mention. The archives of the department were left 

 in boxes, and privately inspected. One day, when a paper 

 was needed, the whole of the documents fell to pieces, and 

 were metamorphosed as if by magic into a heap of clay. The 

 termites had got into the boxes by boring through the 

 wainscot of the room, and had then penetrated among the 

 papers. They consumed every particle of them except the 

 uppermost sheet and the edges, supplying their place with 

 clay. The consequence was, that although the heap of 

 documents seemed to be correct, there was nothing but a 

 mass of clay galleries and a single sheet of paper at 

 the top. 



[So voracious are they, that even a piece of paper wrapped 

 round a bottle was eaten, the termites building a gallery of 

 clay in order to reach it under cover.] 



If we reflect on the prodigious numbers of those insects, 

 and their power and rapidity of destroying, we cannot but 

 admire the wisdom of Providence in creating so indefatigable 

 and useful an agent in countries where the decay of vegetable 

 substances is rapid in proportion to the heat of the climate. 

 We have already remarked that they always prefer decaying 

 or dead timber ; and it is indeed a very general law among 



