414 THE INSECT WOELD. 



which the brothers Poupet, rich ship-owners, caused bales of goods 

 to come from St. Domingo to Rochefort, to La Rochelle, and to other 

 places in that neighbourhood which possess storehouses. The 

 ravages which the termites have committed in the towns of La Sain- 

 tonge are really frightful. Like Valencia, in New Grenada, these 

 towns will find themselves one of these days suspended over cata- 

 combs. At Tournay-Charente, the floor of a dining-room fell in, and 

 the Amphytrion and his guests tumbled together into the cellar. 

 There may be seen in the galleries of the Museum of Natural His- 

 tory of Paris, the wooden columns which supported this room, and 

 which were preserved by Audouin, who had been sent on a mission 

 to report on the damages done. Audouin also selected, as an 

 object of curiosity, a lady's bridal veil, which had been entirely 

 riddled with holes by the termites. 



At La Eochelle these insects took possession of the prefect's 

 house (built by the brothers Poupet), and of the Arsenal. There 

 they invaded offices, apartments, court, and garden. They could 

 not drive in a stake or leave a plank in the garden but it was 

 attacked the next day. One fine morning the archives of the de- 

 partment were found destroyed without there being the smallest 

 trace of the damage to be seen on the exterior. The termites had 

 mined through the wood- work, pierced the cardboard, eaten up 

 the parchments and the papers of the administration, but had 

 always scrupulously respected the upper leaf and edges of all the 

 leaves. It was by mere chance that a clerk, less superficial than 

 his colleagues, one fine day raised one of the leaves which hid this 

 detritus, and thus discovered the destruction of the archives. All 

 the papers of the prefecture are now shut up in boxes of zinc. 



These termites do not venture, any more than their congeners, 

 into the light of day. These terrible miners always envelope 

 themselves in obscurity, and construct on all sides covered 

 galleries as they advance into a building. M. Blanchard and 

 M. de Quatrefages saw in La Rochelle the galleries made by 

 them. They are tubes formed of agglutinated material, which 

 are stuck along the walls in the cellars and the apartments, or 

 else suspended to the roof like stalactites. Certain parts of Agen 

 and of Bordeaux begin also to suffer from the ravages of these 

 insects. The danger appears to be imminent. 



