SUMMER INDUSTRIES 133 



of nitrogenous material which is scarce in the termite's 

 ordinary diet of wood. It is interesting that a similar habit 

 of growing moulds occurs in some of the true ants which 

 belong to quite a different order of insects. And a similarly 

 puzzling convergence is illustrated by the fact that termites, 

 like true ants, often have boarders in their hills, mostly small 

 beetles, neither hostile intruders nor parasites, but guests 

 which are fed and cared for apparently on account of a 

 palatable exudation, with a pleasant narcotising effect on 

 the termites ! 



Many animals, besides ants, illustrate storing, either for 

 themselves or for their offspring. We need not here do 

 more than mention squirrels and beavers, hive-bees and 

 scarabees, for we shall return to storing in its more 

 appropriate seasonal setting as an autumnal industry. 



After the primitive industry of securing food, which has 

 so many forms, may be ranked that of making shelters, in- 

 cluding clothes. Although Carlyle and others have pointed 

 out that man is the only clothed animal, the point is debate- 

 able. It is difficult not to regard as clothing the cocoon of a 

 silk-worm or the case of a caddis-fly, and there are crabs 

 which fix seaweeds on to their backs, or cut off the tunic of 

 a sea-squirt and use it as a cloak. 



Of making shelters there is an embarrassing wealth of 

 illustration. They are often hollowed out in earth and wood, 

 and vary from rough burrows like a rabbit's, to a beauti- 

 fully finished structure like the tube of the female trap-door 

 spider, with its hinged door and its side-room with a curtain 

 over the entrance. Or they may be made of light materials, 

 woven or sewn or somehow fastened together, one of the 

 most striking types being the decorated bower of the bower- 

 bird, since it is a house rather than a cradle, as most nests 

 are. Or they may be genuine buildings of clay or other 

 material. At one end we may place the substantial terrrn'- 



