194 THE TERMITES. 



across a rock which they cannot perforate, when they are 

 making an underground road, they build a tubular passage 

 over it. They can even carry their viaducts through 

 the air, and that in such bold arches that it is difficult to 

 understand how they were projected. In order to reach a sack 

 of meal which was well protected below, they broke through 

 the roof of the room in which it was, and built a straight 

 tube from the breach they had made down to the sack. As 

 soon as they tried to carry off their booty to a safe place, they 

 became convinced that it was impossible to pull it up the 

 straight road. In order to meet this difficulty, they adopted 

 the principle of the smooth incline, the use of which we 

 have already seen in the interior of their nests, and built 

 close to the first tube a second, which wound spirally within, 

 like the famous clock-tower of Venice. It was now an easy 

 task to carry their booty up this road and so away. 



" Like clever engineers," says Blanchard (ioc. cit.) " they 

 build tubular bridges to pass from one spot to another, or 

 tubes from one story of a building to the next. In the 

 cellars of the prefecture of La Rochelle (Southern JF ranee) 

 a number of hollow pillars were to be seen, like stout straws, 

 reaching from floor to ceiling." In building they always 

 cling to the principle that the shortest way is the best, and 

 it is marvellous with what certainty they take the straightest 

 road, even underground, to their places of supply. It has 

 been thought that during the night they send out scouts, 

 which search for the road above ground, and by given signals 

 point out the direction to their comrades working beneath. 

 After what we have already seen among ants, and shall see 

 among bees of the habit of sending out scouts, this does not 

 seem wholly improbable. 



It has already been said that their exists round their nests 

 a widespread system of subterranean canals, serving as means 

 of communication between neighboring colonies. These 

 canals are the wider, the nearer they are to the nest itself, 

 where they have often a diameter of half a foot or more, 

 and become narrower as they get further off thus exactly 

 agreeing with the principles of regular road and canal 

 making. 



Let us now throw a rapid glance at the remarkable insect 

 itself ; its housekeeping requires no more especial descrip- 

 tion, as it closely resembles that of the ants already described , 



