CHAPTER V 



WOODWORKERS 



THE number of wood-boring insects, the carpenters of the 

 insect world, are legion. One or two of them we have 

 mentioned already. The greatest, most industrious, of all 

 the carpenters are the termites. Their activities render 

 furniture, as we know it, useless in the Tropics. They work 

 furtively, and the results of their work are not apparent 

 till too late, and for this reason. A host of these marauders 

 will attack woodwork during the night to such good 

 purpose entering rafters, for example, at the ends and 

 hollowing out the interior in an incredibly short time 

 that eventually nothing but a thin outer shell of wood 

 remains a shell destined to collapse with the slightest 

 strain. The only bright spot in this sordid story is that 

 certain woods, such as teak and various resinous timbers, 

 are left severely alone by these insects. 



In Britain we have an excellent though destructive 

 carpenter in the shape of the goat-moth larva ; so called 

 on account of the nauseating goat-like smell which it 

 gives off. The female moth, a large, heavy, grey-coloured 

 creature, lays her eggs in cracks on the bark of some tree, 

 preferably a willow. She usually chooses a spot not very 

 far from the ground. The larvae, when they emerge, 

 waste no time in tunnelling into the tree, through the 

 bark to the wood beneath. Needless to add that, even 

 at this early stage of their existence, they possess in- 

 ordinately powerful jaws and, in addition, they give off 

 a fluid from their mouths which is supposed to have 

 the power of rendering the wood soft and more easily 

 worked. 



To give some idea of the life work of these caterpillars, 



E 6 5 



