348 



NEW ENGLAND FARJilER. 



Jdly 



[Copied by permission from Appleton's Juvenile Annual.] 

 AFBICAN AWTS, OR TERMITES. 



Although larger than the white ant, they fall vic- 

 tims to that creature in immense numbers. The 

 negroes in Southern Africa cannot get enough of 

 them. They roast them like coffee, and thus pre- 

 pared eat them by handfuls, declaring they are 

 delicious. They also knead them up with flour, 

 making a sort of plum-cake, which is highly ap- 

 preciated by the natives. Even white travellers 

 admit that they make very nice food, having the 

 flavor of sugared cream. So, notwithstanding the 

 immense numbers that come daily into the world, 

 birds, insects, and negroes unite in consuming 

 them to an extent that keeps tliera within reason- 

 able bounds. 



The hills and nests are not only of immense 

 size, but have a solidity which will bear almost 

 any trial. Not only can many men mount them 

 without shaking them, but tiuftaloes establish 

 themselves upon them as watch-towers, from which 

 they can see, over the high grass which covers the 

 plain, if the lion or panther is threatening ihem. 



If the hill is attacked, ihe soldiers are to be 

 seen rushing out furiously to its defence. They 

 rush upon the aggressors, pierce them till they 

 bring blood, and with their sharp pincers h;ing on 

 to the wound, and allow themselves to be torn to 



pieces rather than let go their hold. The negroes, 

 who are without clothes, are soon put to flight, and 

 even Europeans get badly pierced and wounded. 

 During the combat the soldiers strike from time 

 to time on the ground with their pincers, and pro- 

 duce a little dry sound, to which the workers an- 

 swer by a sort of whistling. The workers imme- 

 diately make their appearance, and begin stopping 

 up the holes in the hill, and repairing damages. 

 If the attack continues, the workers mask the pas- 

 sages, stop up the galleries, and wall up the cell 

 in which the queen-mother is concealed. If the 

 cell is penetrated, and the mother-insect removed, 

 the workers will continue their labors, for they 

 are blind, and cannot immediately detect the loss 

 of their queen. 



These creatures sometimes enter houses, per- 

 forating unseen the beams, wood-work, and furni- 

 ture — never destroying the surface, but forcing 

 their way by galleries eaten away through the cen- 

 tre. They have been known in one single night to 

 pierce the whole of a table-leg from top to bottom, 

 to enter a trunk placed upon the table and devour 

 its entire contents, and then to descend through 

 the opposite leg. Their demolitions in India ren- 

 der them the greatest plague of the country. 



