DESTRtrCTIVE POWERS OF INSECTS. 



21 



feet in height ? In some places the whole woods, 

 as far as you can see around you, are dead ; — stripped 

 of their bark, their wintry-looking arms and bare 

 trunks bleaching in the sun, and tumbling in ruins 

 before every blast." In tropical countries the white 



Queen of the White Ant in the winged state, and filled with eggg. 



ants are so voracious that, according to Smeathman, 

 " the total destruction of deserted towns is so 

 effectually completed, that in two or three years a 

 thick wood fills the space." Humboldt states that, 

 as they devour paper and parchment, many pro\dnces 

 of Spanish America cannot in consequence shew a 

 written document of a hundred years' existence, and 

 he justly inquires, " What developement can the 

 civilization of a people assume, if there be nothing 

 to connect the present with the past, — if the de- 



