NEUEOPTEEA. 409 



chase to them and eat them by legions. The negroes in Southern 

 Africa cannot be sated with them. They gather such as have fallen 

 into the water and roast them like coffee ; thus prepared, they eat 

 them by handfuls, and find them delicious. The Indians smoke 

 the termites' nests, and catch those that have wings. They knead 

 them up with flour and make a sort of cake of them. Travellers, 

 moreover, all agree in speaking of them as very nice food, 

 comparing their flavour to that of marrow or of a sugared 

 cream. Smeathman prefers them to the famous palm worm (ver 

 palmiste of the colonists), a delicacy known in South America, 

 which is the larva of the Calandera palmarum, a species of beetle. 

 It seems, however, that an abuse of fried termites brings on a 

 dysentery which may prove mortal. 



All the species of termites are miners, but the greater number 

 are also architects and masons. A few make their nest round a 

 branch of a tree. This nest is of enormous dimensions : it is as large 

 as a tun. The illustration (Fig. 382) after a drawing in Smeath- 

 man's work shows a nest of the Termes bellicosus, composed of bits 

 of wood firmly stuck together with gum. Above their subterranean 

 galleries the greater part of termites construct vast edifices, which 

 contain their magazines and nurseries. The Termes mordax and 

 Termes atrox raise perfect columns, surmounted by capitals which 

 project beyond them and give them the appearance of monstrous 

 mushrooms. These columns attain a height of twenty inches, 

 with a diameter of five ; they are constructed with a black clay, 

 which, worked up by the insects, acquires great hardness. The 

 interior is hollow, or, rather, perforated with irregular cells ; but 

 the most curious edifices are those of Termes bellicosus. These are 

 irregularly conical mounds, flanked by a certain number of turrets 

 decreasing in height. Smeathman gives them a height of from 

 ten to twelve feet ; but Jobson* affirms that he has seen some as 

 high as twenty feet. If men constructed monuments so dispro- 

 portionate to their size, the great pyramid of Griseh, instead of 

 being one hundred and forty- six metres in height, would be one 

 thousand six hundred, and would be higher than the Puy- de- 

 Dome ! 



These knolls of earth are of a solidity which will bear any trial. 



* " History of Gambia." 



