How Animals Work. 



away until they have converted the once solid timbers 

 into hollow shells, and the whole structure suddenly 

 gives way and comes down with a crash. Nothing is 

 safe from their attack except iron and tin, and the speed 

 with which they carry on their work of destruction is 

 truly astonishing. But although the Termites are such a 

 pest in the destruction of woodwork, leather, and other 

 materials, they must be counted amongst Nature's 

 scavengers, doing valuable service in the dense African 

 forests by removing all dead and decaying timbers. 

 Nature has numerous scavengers that remove decaying 

 animal matter, eating it or carrying it out of sight, 

 burying it in the earth, where it can do no harm. And 

 it is the vast swarm of Termites which perform a similar 

 function for the plant world, devouring the tissues of 

 all plants and trees the moment they show the first 

 signs of decay. 



But although the Termites in their search for dead 

 or decaying timber ascend to the topmost branches of 

 the highest trees, yet they carry out their work of ex- 

 ploration out of sight, and literally underground, for 

 they may be said to take the earth with thfem. The 

 extent to which the Termites indulge their tunnel- 

 building habit sounds incredible until one has actually 

 seen it for oneself, and then one becomes impressed, 

 not only with the magnitude of the labours of these 

 comparatively small, soft-bodied insects, but at the vast 

 amount of subsoil which they bring up to the surface 

 in the course of their work. In the elevated regions of 

 Central Africa, where the colonies of Termites seem 

 to reach their maximum development, the mounds or 

 hills built up by these insects attain to immense size, 



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