CHAPTER X\ 7 . 



WONDERS OF INSECT LIFE. 



TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS. 



|HE great ant-eater, dozing during the hot hours of 

 the day within the shady coverts of the forest, 

 sallies forth in the cool of the evening to search 

 for its insect prey on the open Campos. The surface of the 

 ground is there, in many districts, raised into conical hillocks, 

 some five feet in height, and streaked by lines which differ in 

 colour from the surrounding earth, and lead in all directions, 

 over decayed timber and the roots of herbage, from one 

 hillock to the other. These hillocks are the habitations of 

 those curious small pale -coloured and soft -bodied insects 

 called termites, or white ants. They differ very greatly from 

 the true ants in .their mode of growth, or metamorphosis, 

 though similar to them in their habits. 



The true ant, when emerging from the egg, is a footless 

 grub, and remains in the pupa, or quiescent stage, inclosed in 

 a membrane, till its limbs are developed. The termites at 

 once possess the form they are to bear through life, except 



