IxYTRODUCTION OF TERMITES INTO EUROPE 283 



-overthe bed, and on a light being brought, saw to his astonishment 

 that his rest had been disturbed by an innumerable host of 

 white ants. The room having been uninhabited for some time, 

 they had formed a clay nest in one of the corners, communi- 

 cating with similar constructions under the roof, and the whole 

 colony was now busy migrating. They formed a column 

 about a foot and a half broad, and their multitudes poured 

 along in one continuous stream, regardless of the fate of thou- 

 sands of their companions, whom the naturalist scalded to death 

 with boiling water. Their march ceased only with the dawn of 

 day, and several baskets were filled with the bodies of the 

 slain. 



Even Europe is not free from the devastations of the white 

 ants. Thus Termes flavicollis has been introduced from 

 Northern Africa into the neighbourhood of Marseilles ; the North 

 American Termes fiavipes has found its way to Portugal, and 

 even o the imperial gardens of Schonbrunn, near Vienna ; and 

 in western France, particularly in the Departement de la Cha- 

 rente Inferieure, we find a small but extremely voracious species 

 (Teiines lucifucja), which destroys houses to their very founda- 

 tions, and once even devoured part of the archives in the 

 Prefect's palace. 



But if the greedy termite destroys like the bore-worm many 

 a useful work of man, its ravages are perhaps more than com- 

 pensated by its services in removing decayed vegetable substances 

 from the face of the earth, and thus contributing to the purity 

 of the air and the beauty of the landscape. If the forests of the 

 tropical world, where thousands of gigantic trees succumb to 

 the slow ravages of time, or are suddenly prostrated by light- 

 ning or the hurricane, still appear in all the verdure of perpetual 

 youth, it is chiefly to the imremitting labours of the Termites 

 that they are indebted for their freshness. 



Though belonging to a different order of the insect world, the 

 economy of the termites is very similar to that of the real 

 ants. They also form communities, divided into distinct orders : 

 labourers (larvae), soldiers (neuters), perfect insects — and they 

 also erect buildings, but of a far more astonishing structure. 

 Several of their species (T. atrox, bellicosus, Smeathman) 

 erect high dome-like edifices, rising from the plain, so that at 

 first sight they might be mistaken for the hamlets of the negroes ; 



