WOOL AND WOOD DESTROYERS. 283 



So in the dwellings of civilised man they are an un- 

 mitigated pest. But it must be remembered that house- 

 beams, furniture, and documents are not the normal food 

 of the Termites, which existed for ages before man built 

 houses, made furniture, or penned documents. 



Remove man from the scene, and how will the Termites 

 be affected ? Not at all ; for they are found to be flourish- 

 ing in places where man has never intruded himself. 

 Their chief object is to co-operate with other creatures in 

 preserving the balance of creation, of restoring to earth 

 that which sprang from it, and so to enable earth to re- 

 produce new forms of life. 



Remove the Termites and the wood-destroying creatures 

 from the scene, and there would not be a forest left in 

 the world. Annihilate them all, and see what would 

 happen. When a tree died, it would be blown down, 

 fall, and lie there as long as the world lasts. It would 

 cumber the ground so that no new tree could take its 

 place, and so, in the course of a couple of thousand years 

 or so, instead of a forest, there would be a tangled mass 

 of dead, dry trunks and branches, through which no new 

 growths could force their way. 



Then the abolition of the foliage would alter the 

 climate, and produce a perpetual drought, so that even if 

 grass and herbage tried to grow, they would be withered 

 up for want of water. It would be a pathless wilderness 

 a Sahara of wood instead of sand. 



But see what happens when the wood-eating insects 

 come into operation. 



