30 PHBXOMEN& OP VEGETATION, 



of greater moisture in the air increased the power of these distillers ; 

 the period of greatest activity was in the morning, when the air and 

 everything else was charged with dew. 



" Having but one day left for experiment I found again that 

 another colony on a branch denuded in the same way yielded a drop 

 every two seconds, or 4 pints 10 ounces every 24 hours, while a 

 colony on a branch untouched yielded a drop every 11 seconds, or 

 16 ounces 2~^ drams in 24 hours. I regretted somewhat the 

 want of time to institute another experiment, namely, to cut a branch 

 and place it in water, so as to keep it in life, and then observe if there 

 were any diminution of the quantity of water in the vessel. This alone 

 was wanting to make it certain that they draw water from the atmos- 

 phere. I imagine that they have some power of which we are not 

 aware besides that nervous influence which causes constant motion to 

 our own involuntary muscles, the power of life-long action witliout 

 fatigue. The reader will remember, in connection with this insect, 

 the case of the ants already mentioned." 



The same question is taken up by Sir J. E, Tennant, in writing of 

 what he had observed at Ceylon. 



" Entomologists," says he, " have raised the intei-esting question. 

 Where do the termites, or so called white ants — though of another 

 genus than the common ant — where do they derive the large sup- 

 plies of moisture with which they not only temper the clay for the 

 construction of their long-covered ways above ground, but for 

 keeping their passages uniformly damp and cool below the surface ? 

 Yet their habits in this particular are unvarying — in the seasons of 

 drought as well as after rain, in the dryest and least promising 

 positions, in situations inaccessible to drainage from above, and cut 

 off by rocks and impervious strata from the springs below. Dr 

 Livingstone, struck with this phenomena in Southern Africa, asks — 

 Can the white ants possess the power of combining the oxygen and 

 hydrogen of their vegetable food so as to form water] And he 

 describes at Angola an insect resembling the Aphrophora spumaria, 

 seven or eight individuals of which distil several pints of water every 

 night. It is highly probable that the termites are endowed with 

 some such fiiculty. Nor is it more remarkable that an insect should 

 combine the gases of its food to produce water, than that a fish 

 should decompose water to provide itself with gas. Fourcroix found 

 the contents of the air-bladder in a carp to be ^)?«re nitrogen ; and 

 the aquatic larvse of the dragon-fly extracts air for its respiration, 

 from the water in which it is submerged. A similar mystery per- 



