THE DESTRUCTION THEY EFFECT. 



during the rainy season, are apt to shelter themselves there, and 

 to hurrow through it, they very soon ruin the house by weakening 

 the fastenings and exposing it to the wet. In the meantime, the 

 posts will he perforated in every direction, as full of holes as that 

 timber in the bottom of ships which has been bored by the worms ; 

 the fibrous and knotty parts, which are the hardest, being left to 

 the last. 



58. They sometimes, in carrying on this business, find that the 

 post has some weight to support, and then, if it is a convenient 

 track to the roof, or is itself a kind of wood agreeable to them, 

 they bring their mortar, and fill all or most of the cavities, 

 leaving the necessary roads through it, and as fast as they take 

 away the wood, replace the vacancy with that material ; which 

 being worked together by them closer and more compactly than 

 human strength or art could ram it, when the house is pulled to 

 pieces, in order to examine if any of the posts are fit to be used 

 again, those of the softer kinds are often found reduced almost to 

 a shell, and all, or a greater part, transformed from wood to clay, 

 as solid and as hard as many kinds of freestone used for building 

 in England. 



It is much the same when the Termites helUeosi get into a 

 chest or trunk containing clothes and other things ; if the 

 weight above is great, or they are afraid of ants and other 

 enemies, and have time, they carry their pipes through, and 

 replace a great part with clay, running their galleries in various 

 directions. The tree-Termites, indeed, when they get within a 

 bos, often make a nest there, and being once in possession destroy 

 it at their leisure. They did so in a pjrramidal box which 

 contained the compound microscope of Mr. Smeathman. It was 

 of mahogany, and he deposited it in the warehouse of Governor 

 Campbell of Tobago, while he made a tour of a few months in the 

 Leeward Islands. On his return he^found that the Termites had 

 done much mischief in the warehouse, and, among other things, 

 had taken possession of the microscope, and eaten everjrthing 

 about it except the glass or metal, including the board on which 

 the pedestal is fixed, with the drawers under it, and the things 

 enclosed. The cells were built all round the pedestal and the 

 tube, and attached to it on every side. All the glasses were 

 covered with the wooden substance of their nests, and retained 

 a cloud of a gummy nature upon them which was not easily got 

 ofii and the lacquer or burnish with which the brasswork was 

 covered was totally spoiled. 



Another party had ta,ken a liking to a cask of Madeira, and 

 had bored so as to discharge almost a pipe of fine old wine. If 

 the large species of Africa (the Termites hellieosi) had been so 



119 



