NEUEOPTEEA. 405 



the Order in which their conformation places them. In fact, they 

 live in very numerous societies, and build very solid and very 

 extensive dwelling-places quite Cyclopean or Titanic works in 

 comparison to the tiny dimensions and weak and feeble appearance 

 of the insect. 



Many travellers have spoken of these insects. They are met 

 with in the Savannahs of North America, in Guyana, in Africa, in 

 New Holland, and even in Europe, whither they have been im- 

 ported. M. de Prefontaine relates that, when he was travelling in 

 Guyana, he saw the negroes besieging certain strange buildings, 

 which he calls ant-hills. They dared not attack them except from 

 a distance and with firearms, although they had taken the precau- 

 tion of digging all round them a little fosse filled w-ith water, in 

 which the besieged would be drowned if they made a sortie. These 

 were the Termites' nests. 



Perhaps it is to Termites Herodotus alludes when he speaks of 

 ants which inhabit Bactria, and which, larger than a fox, eat a 

 pound of meat a day.* Retired in the sandy deserts, these gigantic 

 insects hollow out (says he) subterranean dwellings, and raise 

 mounds of golden sand, which the Indians carry away at the peril 

 of their lives. Pliny, who relates the same fables, adds that there 

 were to be seen in the Temple of Hercules the horns of these ants. 

 Even in our own days some travellers have repeated absurd 

 fables about Termites. They have attributed to them a venom 

 which one cannot breathe without being poisoned ; they have said 

 that a single bite was enough to cause a mortal fever. The truth, 

 as it is revealed to us by conscientious observers, is still stranger 

 than these fictions or errors. The Termites present curious modi- 

 fications, on the nature of which naturalists are not agreed. 

 There are, in the first place, the perfect insects, males and females, 

 which are provided with wings ; then there are the neuters, 

 which are divided into soldiers, whose duty it is to defend the 

 nest, and into workers, upon whom devolve the architectural 

 works and household cares. These last are smaller than the 

 soldiers. Latreille and some other naturalists think that these 

 workers are the larvae of the Termites. Smeathman thinks that the 



* De Quatrefages, " Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste," in 18mo. Paris, 1854, tome ii. 

 p. 377. 



