THE TERMITES. 201 



mites), on which the detailed observations of Lespes were 

 made, and in whose habits he found many differences from 

 the non-European species. 



According to Blanchard the third part of the plains of the 

 Island of Ceylon is undermined by the Termites. In Upper 

 Egypt they not seldom compel the inhabitants to leave their 

 ruined dwellings and to build a home in a new spot. In the 

 East Indies, Bengal, the southern part of China, Soudan, etc., 

 they are a fearful scourge. In West Africa they level to 

 the ground in a few years the deserted huts of the natives. 

 In the whole of South America, as Humboldt relates, books 

 more than fifty years old are rare, for the Termites have the 

 laudable habit of making passages into the libraries, and 

 obliquely through the rows of books. In the sea-coast 

 towns of Brazil and of the East Indies whole magazines often 

 fall a prey to their destructive energy. Even metal is not 

 secure from the attack of the sour Termites'-acid, and the 

 bores of iron cannon in Ternate [Molucca Isles] are found 

 covered with Termites' roads and are quickly attacked by rust. 



On the Termites of South America the English traveller, 

 Bates who has given us so many interesting details on the 

 ants of that continent has again made a report which 

 contains indeed nothing new, but which deserves to be given 

 here as the 1'ecord of the observations made lately by a 

 trustworthy eye witness : 



" The surface of the Campos " (round Santarem, a town 

 lying on the lower course of the Amazon), says Bates, " is 

 disfigured in all directions by earthy mounds and conical 

 hillocks, the work of many different species of white ants. 

 Some of these structures are five feet high, and formed of 

 particles of earth worked into a material as hard as stone ; 

 others are smaller, and constructed in a looser manner. The 

 ground is everywhere streaked with the narrow covered 

 galleries which are built up by the insects of grains of earth 

 different in color from the surrounding soil, to protect 

 themselves whilst conveying materials with which to build 

 their cities for such the tumuli may be considered or 

 carrying their young from one hillock to another. The same 

 covered ways are spread over all the dead timber, and about 

 the decaying roots of herbage, which serve as food to the 

 white ants. An examination of these tubular passages, or 

 arcades, in any part of the district, or a peep into one of the 



