DUCK-ANTS. 119 



with large black, round masses, often as big as a 

 hogshead, adhering to the trunks or the branches. 

 Curious to know the nature of so singular an appen- 

 dage, he is told that these protuberant masses are the 

 nests of Duck-ants or Termites ; and on examination 

 he finds that they are composed apparently of an 

 earthy substance, comminuted very fine, and made 

 into a sort of paste with animal gluten. The outside 

 is friable, and much resembles, except in colour, that 

 description of pastry technically called " short," as 

 does the whole of that portion which is newly con- 

 structed ; but the interior has a hardness and firm- 

 ness superior to that of wood. The whole mass is 

 composed of numberless passages of the diameter of 

 a man's little finger, separated by walls about one- 

 tenth of an inch thick, and running without any 

 obvious regularity or design. On the surface-walls 

 being broken in, out swarm hundreds of the inhabit- 

 ants, most of them active little fellows with black 

 heads, but many, rather larger and plumper, with 

 yellow heads are scattered among the crowd. I pre- 

 sume the former to be the labourers, and the latter 

 the soldiers. A single covered gallery is invariably 

 found to extend from the edifice along the trunk of 

 the tree to the earth. Frequently I have observed 

 in the morning a similar covered gallery, as thick as 

 one's thumb, extending all across the high-road daily 

 travelled by vehicles of various kinds ; whence I con- 

 clude that the construction of such a passage was the 

 work of the preceding night. 



After a time, from some cause or other, the great 

 nests are deserted; but continue to maintain their 

 integrity for an indefinite period. In this state the 



