70 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1781. 



termites. The larger species, the termes atrox, En its perfect state measures 

 1 inch and -^ from the extremities of the wings on the one side to the extremi- 

 ties on the other. The lesser species, termes mordax, measures only -Jl of an 

 inch from tip to tip. 



The next kind of nests, built by another species of this genus, the termes arbo- 

 rum, have very little resemblance to the former in shape or substance. These are 

 generally spherical or oval, and built in trees. Sometimes they are seated between 

 the arms and the stems of trees, and very frequently may be seen surrounding 

 the branch of a tree at the height of 70 or 80 feet; and, though but rarely, as 

 large as a very great sugar cask. They are composed of small particles of wood 

 and the various gums and juices of trees, perhaps combined with those of the 

 animals, and worked by those little industrious creatures into a paste, and so 

 moulded into innumerable little cells of very different and irregular forms, which 

 afford no amusing variety and nothing curious, but the immense quantity of 

 inhabitants, young and old, with which they are at all times crowded; on which 

 account they are sought for in order to feed young fowls, and especially for the 

 treating of turkies. These nests are very compact, and so strongly attached to 

 the boughs on which they are fixed, that there is no detaching them but by 

 cutting them in pieces, or sawing off' the branch: and they will sustain the force 

 of a tornado as long as the tree on which they are fixed. This species has the 

 external habit, size, and almost the colour, of the termes atrox. 



Some nests are built in those sandy plains called, after the Spaniards, 

 Savannas, that resemble the hill nests first described. They are composed of a 

 black mud, brought from a few inches below the white sand, and are built in the 

 form of an imperfect cone, or bell-shaped, having their tops rounded. These 

 nests are generally about 4 or 5 feet high. They seemed to be inhabited by 

 nearly as large insects, differing very little except in colour, which is lighter than 

 that of the termites bellicosi. 



It has been before observed, that there are of every species of termites 3 

 orders; of these orders the working insects or labourers are always the most 

 numerous; in the termes bellicosus there seems to be at the least 100 labourers 

 to one of the fighting insects or soldiers. They are in this state about J- of an 

 inch long, and 25 of them weigh about a grain; so that they are not so large as 

 some of our ants. From their external habit and fondness for wood, they have 

 been very expressively called wood-lice by some people, and the whole genus has 

 been known by that name, particularly among the French. They resemble 

 them, it is true, very much at a distance, but they run as fast or faster than any 

 other insects of their size, and are incessantly bustling about their affairs. The 2d 

 order, or soldiers, have a very different form from the labourers, and have been 

 by some authors supposed to be the males, and the former neuters; but they are, 



