412 THE INSECT WORLD. 
They have been known, in one single night, to pierce the whole 
of a table leg from top to bottom, and then the table itself; 
and then, still continuing to pierce their way, to descend through 
the opposite leg, after having devoured the contents of a trunk 
placed upon the table. On account of the devastations which 
they occasion, Linnzeus has called the white ant the greatest plague 
of the Indies. 
There exist in France two species of termites, the Termes 
lucifugus, a little insect of a brilliant black (at least in the male), 
with russety legs, which is common enough in the moors of 
Gascony ; and the Yellow-necked White Ant (Termes flavicollis), 
which lives in the interior of trees and does a great deal of mis- 
chief in Spain and in the south of France to olive and other 
precious trees, whilst the first attacks oak and fir trees. La- 
treille established that it is the Termes lucifugus which causes 
such havoc at La Rochelle, at Rochefort, at Saintes, at Tournay- 
Charente, in the Isle of Aix, &., where many houses have been 
completely undermined by these terrible insects. But M. de 
Quatrefages* has proved that the habits of the termes found in 
towns differ in many essential points from the habits of termes 
in the country. And go it is most probable that the former 
belong to an exotic species, which must have been unfortunately 
imported into France by a merchant vessel. According to 
M. Bobe-Moreau,t it was only in 1797 that termites were dis- 
covered for the first time in Rochefort, in a house which had 
stood for a long while uninhabited, and which they had com- 
pletely undermined. In 1804, Latreille relates, as a “hear- 
say,” that the termites had for some years made the inhabitants 
of Rochefort uneasy ; but in 1829, the same author tells a very 
different tale. He speaks with dismay of the ravages committed 
by this insect in the workshops belonging to the Royal Navy. 
The importation of the termes into France is then of recent date. 
A note which was sent to M. de Quatrefages by M. Beltrémieux, 
fixes with still greater accuracy the date of the importation 
of the termites ; it must have taken place about 1780, a period at 
* “ Note sur les Termites de la Rochelle.” Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 3e 
série, tome xx., p. 18. 1853. 
+ “Mémoire sur les Termites observés a Rochefort.’ Saintes, 1843. 
