TERMITES. 461 



habitation and seize tliem, and carry them away, they 

 are alert in repairing the external breaches which 

 accident makes in the walls of their galleries, by 

 sticking into them patches of mud and compost. 



•' Smeathman, who has very minutely described and 

 illustrated the tribes of Termites, and who considers 

 their whole economy of life as a providential relation 

 between the decomposition of vegetable substances 

 and the means of accelerating vegetable decay, says 

 they do not usually attack trees in a sound state : 

 ' Vigorous healthy trees do not require to be de- 

 stroyed, and accordingly these consumers have no 

 taste for them.' When a large tree falls from age 

 or accident, there are Termites that enter it on the 

 side next to the ground and devour it at leisure. 

 The inside is soon perforated and destroyed, and 

 nothing but the outside case remains. It retains its 

 form for a time after this process of excavation has 

 been gone through, but it falls away and crumbles at 

 a touch, and is so unsubstantial, that Smeathman 

 very amusingly observes, ' you may as well step 

 upon a cloud,' as set foot on one of these disem 

 bowelled masses of the forest. 



" The general remark that the Termite does not 

 attack growing trees, is the fact to which I would 

 direct attention. The depredation committed by the 

 ground Termite on a field of sugar-canes contradicts 

 this conclusion, and the general deduction that 

 Smeathman would draw from the economy of life of 

 the tribe. There is, however, a portion of the history 

 given by him of the pursuits and habits of some of 

 them, that bears upon their attacks upon sapid vege- 



