MULTUM E PARVO. 



glasses fixed to the wall, not suspended in frames 

 as I left them, but completely surrounded by an 

 incrustation cemented by the white ants, who had 

 actually eaten up the deal frames and backboards, 

 and the greater part of the paper, and left the 

 glasses upheld by the incrustation or covered way, 

 which they had formed during their depredations." 



Smeathman tells of a pipe of old Madeira wine 

 having been tapped and entirely lost by a band of 

 these insects, who had taken a fancy to the oak 

 staves of the cask. And Sir B. Tennent appears 

 to have fared no better ; for he complains that, in 

 Ceylon, he had a case of wine filled, in the course 

 of two days, with almost solid clay, and only 

 discovered the presence of the white ants by the 

 bursting of the corks. 



They find their way into bureaux and cabinets, 

 and greedily devour all papers and parchments 

 therein, and "a shelf of books will be tunnelled 

 into a gallery, if it happen to be in their line of 

 march." Hence, as Humboldt observes, through- 

 out the equinoctial regions of America,— and the 

 same is true in similar climates of the Old World, 

 indeed, in all, where very special precautions are 

 not taken against it, — it is infinitely rare to find 

 any records much more than half a century old. 



But though the exercise of their instinct brings 

 these little insects into collision with man, and so 

 far they act as his enemies, abundantly making up 

 in pertinacity and consociation what they lack in 

 individual force, — we shall greatly misunderstand 

 their mission if we look at it only in this aspect. 

 As an example of mean agents performing great 

 deeds, we must see them far from the haunts of 

 man, engaged as the scavengers of the forest- wilds 

 of the tropics ; the removers of fallen trees, of huge 

 giants of the woods, commissioned to get rid of 

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