CHAP. X. NESTS OF THE WHITE ANTS. 303 



procure a sufficiency of food for so many thousand indi- 

 viduals ? The method they adopt is most singular, and 

 has been verified by our personal observations. From the 

 citadel or common nest, radiating and branching in all 

 directions, are innumerable tunnels or covered ways : 

 those which unite the greatest number of lateral com- 

 munications may strictly be compared to our high 

 roads, their diameter is frequently wider than the 

 bore of a large cannon ; others, on the contrary, are 

 much narrower, and resemble our lanes or cross roads. 

 Messrs. Kirby and Spence are in error when they in- 

 timate * that the white ants cannot well mount a sur- 

 face quite perpendicular. The fact is, that, in certain 

 parts of Tropical America, these covered ways may be 

 seen, in innumerable instances, carried up the perpendi- 

 cular stems of lofty trees to the height of thirty or forty 

 feet ; but as these are evidently a distinct species from the 

 T. bellicosus of Western Africa, a variation of habit or 

 economy may naturally be expected. Their great high- 

 ways are, as Smeathman observes, " generally concealed at 

 the depth of three or four feet below the surface, and ex- 

 tend to no great distance from the bottom of their nests : 

 the lesser roads, however, extend to great lengths, and, 

 when carried above the earth, are covered over, in the 

 form of an arch, with tempered mortar ; which, to de- 

 ceive the eye, is always incorporated with particles of the 

 substance upon which it reposes, so that, the colour 

 being precisely the same, few persons would detect the 

 masonry, even when immediately before him." There 

 is an extraordinary circumstance connected with this 

 part of their labours, which does not appear to have 

 struck any one of the authors who have written upon 

 these creatures. If, as there is every reason to be- 

 lieve, they do not venture beyond their covered ways, 

 by what means do they discover the best and the 

 shortest road to any particular object a decayed tree, 

 for instance, which is adapted for their nourishment, 

 and which they consequently mean to attack ? When 



* Vol. ii. p. 38. 



