282 ANTS AND TERMITES 



wQrk of a spacious apartment. Outwardly, the beams and 

 rafters may seem untouched, while their core is completely 

 consumed, for these destructive miners work in the dark, 

 and seldom attack the outside until they have previously con- 

 cealed themselves and their operations by a coat of clay. 

 Scarcely any organic substance remains free from their attacks ; 

 and forcing their resistless way into trunks, chests, and wardrobes, 

 they will often devour in one night all the shoes, boots, clothes, 

 and papers they may contain. It is principally owing to their 

 destructions, says Humboldt, that it is so rare to find papers 

 in tropical America of an older date than fifty or sixty 

 years. Smeathman relates, that a party of them once took a 

 fancy to a pipe of fine old Madeira, not for the sake of the wine, 

 almost the whole of which they let out, but of the staves, which, 

 however, may not have proved less tasteful from having imbibed 

 some of the costly liquor. On surveying a room which had been 

 locked up during an absence of a few weeks, Forbes, the author 

 of the " Oriental Memoirs," observed a number of advanced 

 works in various directions towards some prints and drawings in 

 English frames ; the glasses appeared to be uncommonly dull, 

 and the frames covered with dust. On attempting to wipe it 

 off, he was astonished to find the glasses fixed to the wall, not 

 suspended in frames as he left them, but completely surrounded 

 by an incrustation cemented by the white ants, who had actually 

 eaten up the deal frames and backboards and the greater part 

 of the paper, and left the glasses upheld by the incrustation or 

 covered way which they had formed during their depredations. 



On the small island of Groree, near Cape Verde, the famous 

 naturalist, Adanson, lived in a straw hut, which, though quite new 

 at the time he took up his residence in it, became transparent in 

 many places before the month was out. This might have been en- 

 dured, but the villainous termites ravaged his trunk, destroyed his 

 books, penetrated into his bed, and at last attacked the naturalist 

 himself. Neither sweet nor salt water, neither vinegar nor cor- 

 rosive liquids, were able to drive them away, and so Adanson 

 thought it best to abandon the premises, and to look out for 

 another lodging. 



One night. Professor von Martins (" Travels in Brazil") was 

 awakened by a disagreeable feeling of cold across his body. 

 Groping in the dark, he found a cool greasy mass crawling right 



