THEIR VORACITY. 



their way also with the greatest ease into trunks and boxes, even 

 though made of mahogany, and destroy papers and everything- 

 they contain, constructing their galleries and sometimes taking 

 up their ahode in them. Hence, as Humboldt informs us, through- 

 out all the warmer parts of equinoctial America, where these 

 and other destructive insects abound, it is infinitely rare to find 

 papers which go fifty or sixty years hack. In one night they 

 will devour all the boots and shoes that are left in their way ; 

 cloth, linen, or books are equally to their taste ; but they will 

 not eat cotton. They entirely consumed a collection of insects 

 made in India. In a word, scarcely anything but metal or stones 

 comes amiss to them. 



62. It is even asserted that the superb residence of the Governor- 

 General at Calcutta, which cost the East India Company such 

 immense sums, is now rapidly going to decay in consequence of 

 the attacks of these insects. But not content with the dominions 

 they have acquired, and the cities they have laid low on terra 

 flrma, encouraged by success, the white ants have also aimed at 

 the sovereignty of the ocean, and once had the hardihood to 

 attack even a British ship of the line ; and in spite of the efforts 

 of the commander and his valiant crew, having boarded they got 

 possession of her, and handled her so roughly, that when brought 

 into port, being no longer fit for service, she was obliged to be 

 broken up. 



The ship here alluded to was the Albion, which was in such a 

 condition from the attack of these insects, that had it not been 

 firmly lashed together, it was thought she would have foundered 

 on her voyage home. The late Mr. Eittoe stated that the droguers 

 or draguers, a kind of lighter employed in the West Indies in 

 collecting the sugar, sometimes so swai-m with ants of the common 

 kind, that they have no other way of getting rid of these trouble- 

 some insects than by sinking the vessel in shallow water. 



63. When the Termites attack trees and branches in the open 

 air, they sometimes vary their manner of doing it. If a stake in a 

 hedge has not taken root and vegetated, it becomes their business 

 to destroy it. If it has a good sound bark round it, they will 



. enter at the bottom, and eat all but the bark, whic^ will remain, 

 and exhibit the appearance of a solid stick (which some vagrant 

 colony of ants or other insects often shelter in, till the winds 

 disperse it) ; but if they cannot trust the bark, they cover the 

 whole stick with their mortar, and it then looks as if it had been 

 dipped into thick mud that had been dried on. Under this 

 covering they work, leaving no more of the stick and bark than 

 is barely sufficient to support it, and frequently not the smallest 

 particle, so that upon a very small tap with your walking stick, 



121 



