NEUROPTERA. 341 



But none of this Order are so celebrated as the 

 White-ants (Termes*) of tropical Africa and Asia. 

 The powers of destruction with which these insects 

 are endowed are almost beyond belief. Nothing 

 is secure from their ravages but glass ; even metals 

 they incase and corrode with their peculiar secre- 

 tions, and all kinds of furniture, clothing, books, 

 and papers, are devoured with incredible rapacity. 

 They will frequently pierce the floor of a house, 

 into a trunk, consume every thing in it in one night, 

 and almost fill it with strong galleries and walls of 

 a kind of mortar. Even houses are sometimes de- 

 stroyed by them, the wood- work of the walls being 

 entirely eaten up. In the woods they destroy fallen 

 trees in a very brief space, leaving only the thin 

 hollow bark, which retains indeed the appearance of 

 a large trunk, but on being touched drops to dust. 

 Some species build conical houses, ten or twelve 

 feet high, of the mortar above-mentioned ; these 

 are intersected by numberless covered ways, or gal- 

 leries, leading to the centre. A great number of in- 

 dividuals live in society in these dwellings, composed 

 of four kinds ; the males, the females, the neuters, 

 or soldiers, and the larvte, or labourers. The neu- 

 ters are not pupae ^ as has been supposed. In these 

 particulars we see a close affinity with the true 

 Ants, Bees, &c., among the Hymenoptera. A very 

 little Insect, sometimes called a Woodlouse, (T. Pul- 

 satoria,} which we often see nimbly running in old 

 drawers, or among papers, belongs to this genus. 



* The Latin name of some insect. 



