288 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



and, finally, that the millions necessary to execute such Herculean labours, 

 perpetually passing to and fro, should never interrupt or interfere with 

 each other, is a miracle of nature, or rather of the Author of nature, far 

 exceeding the most boasted works and structures of man : for, did these 

 creatures equal him in size, retaining their usual instincts and activity, 

 their buildings would soar to the astonishing height of more than half a 

 mile, and their tunnels would expand to a magnificent cylinder of more than 

 three hundred feet in diameter ; before which the pyramids of Egypt and 

 the aqueducts of Rome would lose all their celebrity, and dwindle into 

 nothings. 1 So that when in the commencement of my last letter I pro- 

 mised to introduce you to insects whose labours produced edifices more 

 astonishing than those of the mightiest Egyptian monarchs, the pyramids, 

 my promise, whatever you then thought of it, was the reverse of hyper- 

 bolical. 



I am, &c. 



i The most elevated of the pyramids of Egypt is not more than 600 feet high, 

 which, setting the average height of man at only five feet, is not more than 120 

 times the height of the workmen employed. Whereas the nests of the Termites 

 being at least twelve feet high, and the insects themselves not exceeding a quarter 

 of an inch in stature, their edifice is upwards of 500 times the height of the 

 builders ; which, supposing them of human dimensions, would be more than half a 

 mile. The shaft of the Roman aqueducts was lofty enough to permit a man on 

 horseback to travel in them. 



Addition to the note on Scolytus destructor, p. 122. 



Since writing the note above referred to upon Scolytus destructor, I have seen in 

 passing through Paris to Italy, so striking an instance of the way in which the 

 little beetle to which it refers has revenged the neglect and contempt thrown upon 

 its class bj' destroying in a great degree the effect of one of the most vaunted and 

 costly productions of modern architecture, that the fact may be worth recording as 

 an instructive warning for the future. The avenue of elms connecting the Place de 

 la Concorde and Champs Elysees with the Barriere de 1'Etoile leading to Neuilly, 

 St. Germains, &c., has always been described as the most magnificent approach to 

 Paris, and was on that account selected by Napoleon for the entree of his new 

 empress Marie-Louise, and as the site, at its most elevated point, of the " Arc de 

 Triomphe," commemorating his victories and companions in arms, of which he laid 

 the foundations, but which has only recently been completed at a vast expense. It 

 is needless to point out how essentially the effect of this splendid monument of art 

 must depend upon the size, health, and beauty of the lines of trees connecting it 

 with those which occupy the Champs Elyse'es, and garden of the Tuileries ; yet at 

 this time (September 10. 1842) there are lying from twenty to thirty of their finest 

 elms very lately cut down, in consequence of having died from the attacks of Sco- 

 lyti ; and as many others had been previously removed and replaced by young 

 trees, and the full-grown ones offer, from their dead tops, the numerous holes in 

 their bark, and the oozing sap, ample proof that their pigmy but effective assailants 

 are silently at work on the rest, it is evident that the whole avenue is eventually 

 doomed to destruction, and that a century must elapse before it can resume that 

 grandeur which it might have retained for ages had the economy of these insects 

 been understood, and the proper measures for extirpating them taken at the outset. 

 It has been well observed, that in many cases a palace had better be burnt than the 

 fine old trees that surround and ornament it destroyed, as the former may be 



