NESTS OF THE TERMITES. 197 



worked until perfectly smooth, and as it hardens becomes 

 almost as solid as sandstone, and strong enough to bear 

 the weight of a man or horse, and even a loaded cart. 



The Cupim nests are smaller, but the walls are six 

 inches thick, and so hard as to be cut open with difficulty. 



In Ceylon the nests are not destroyed even by the 

 monsoon-rains, which no mortar or cement is able long 

 to withstand, and the clay is so extremely fine and pure 

 that the goldsmiths there use it in preference to all other 

 substances for the moulds of their finer castings. For the 

 same reason it is used for making idols. 



Other termites make their nests of black clay, and in 

 the shape of cylinders, which, being three-quarters of a yard 

 high, and having conical roofs with overhanging eaves, 

 look like gigantic mushrooms. Others, again, use a sort 

 of paste, made of wood, gum, and the juices of trees with 

 which they build nests among the boughs as large as 

 bushel-baskets, and strong enough to resist the fury of 

 a tornado. 



But, whatever their habitations, all the termites are 

 alike in the wonderful rapidity with which they will 

 remove anything perishable which comes in their way. 

 It is said that not even fire and tornado equal in this 

 respect the termite-hosts, which in a few weeks will destroy 

 and carry away the trunks of large trees without leaving a 

 particle behind. In this way they clear the ground for 

 a fresh growth ; and in the tropics, where vegetation 

 matures rapidly, and the Guinea grass reaches a height 

 of thirteen feet in five or six months, it is highly important 

 that all plants should be removed as soon as they have 



