216 



THE WONDER OF LIFE 



They are not related to the true ants, differing widely 

 from them in structure, in life-history, and in their 

 social economy, but they resemble them in their achieve- 

 ments and in compelling our admiration. They are 

 unique among insects in often contributing to the scenery 

 of the lands which they inhabit, for the hills or termitaries 

 many of them construct out of masticated earth are often 

 twice a man's height and are often as thick as mole-hills 

 on a badly infested field. Indeed there are many parts of 

 South Africa where the hard 

 domes of the termitaries form 

 perhaps the most prominent 

 feature in a monotonous land- 

 scape. Like the true ants, they 

 are ' lords of the sub-soil ', but 

 their appetite for woody stuffs 

 gives them a wider grip of things, 

 and their influence on human life 

 is very considerable. Telegraph 

 posts and the like have to be 

 made of iron to resist their 

 jaws ; the legs of the table have 

 to be insulated on earthenware 

 cups ; and, as the late Pro- 

 fessor Henry Drummond said, there are many places 

 where it is dangerous for a man with a wooden leg to 

 go to sleep without taking special precautions, else his 

 artificial member will be a heap of sawdust in the morning. 

 We must not even begin to discuss the work they do in 

 pruning forest trees of their decaying branches, and in 

 aiding the earthworms in the circulation of the soil liter- 

 ally making the world go round. For as they greatly 



FIG. 40. Worker Termite, 

 Termes ceylonicus; 

 enlarged. (After 

 Bugnion.) 



