VOL. JLXXI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 77 



In carrying on this business, they sometimes find, it seems, that the post has 

 some weight to support ; and then, if it is a convenient track to the roof, or is 

 itself a kind of wood agreeable to them, they bring their mortar, and fill all or 

 most of the cavities, leaving the necessary roads through it, and, as fast as they 

 take away the wood, replace the vacancy with that material ; which being 

 worked together by them closer and more compactly than human strength or art 

 could ram it, when the house is pulled to pieces, in order to examine if any of 

 the posts are fit to be used again, those of the softer kinds are often found re- 

 duced almost to a shell, and all or a greater part transformed from wood to clay, 

 as solid and as hard as many kinds of free-stone used for building in England. 

 It is much the same when the termites bellicosi get into a chest or trunk con- 

 taining clothes and other things ; if the weight above is great, or they are afraid 

 of ants or other enemies, and have time, they carry their pipes through, and 

 replace a great part with clay, running their galleries in various directions. The 

 tree termites indeed, when they get within a box, often make a nest there, and 

 being once in possession destroy it at their leisure. They did so to the pyramidal 

 box which contained Mr. S.'s compound microscope. It was of mahogany, and 

 he had left it in the store of Governor Campbell, of Tobago, for a few months, 

 while he made the tour of the Leeward Islands. On his return he found these 

 insects had done much mischief in the store, and, among other things, had 

 taken possession of the microscope, and eaten every thing about it except the 

 glass or metal, and the board on which the pedestal is fixed, with the drawers 

 under it, and the things inclosed. The cells were built all round the pedestal 

 and the tube, and attached to it on every side. All the glasses which were 

 covered with the wooden substance of their nests retained a cloud, of a gummy 

 nature, on them, that was not easily got off, and the lacquer or burnish with 

 which the brass work was covered was totally spoiled. Another party had taken 

 a liking to the staves of a Madeira cask, and had let out almost a pipe of fine old 

 wine. If the large species of Africa (the termites bellicosi) had been so long in 

 the uninterrupted possession of such a store, they would not have left 20 pounds 

 weight of wood remaining of the whole building, and all that it contained.* 



* Captain Phillip of the navy, who was some time at the Brazils in the service of Portugal, gave 

 Mr. S. the .following relation. " An engineer, returned from surveying the country, left his trunk on 

 a table : the next morning, not only all his clothes were destroyed by White Ants or Cutters, but his 

 papers also ; and the latter in such a manner, that there was not a bit left of an inch square. The 

 black lead pencils were likewise so completely destroyed, that the smallest piece, even of the black 

 lead, could not be found. The clothes were not entirely cut to pieces and carried away, but appeared 

 as if moth-eaten, there being scarce a piece as large as a shilling that was free from small holes ; and 

 it was further remarkable, that some silver coin, which was in the trunk, had a number of black 

 specks on it, caused by something so corrosive that they could not easily be rubbed off even with 

 sand." — Orig. 



