THE TERMITE, OR WHITE ANT. 349 



long galleries through which they can pass without suffering 

 inconvenience from the light of day. Both the workers and 

 soldiers are blind ; but, in spite of the absence of external visual 

 organs, they are very sensitive to light, and avoid it in every 

 possible way. 



The food of the Termite is of a vegetable character, and consists 

 mostly of wooden fibres. They will, however, eat through almost 

 anything, and the traveller in hot climates finds them among his 

 worst troubles. They wiU cut to pieces the mat on which a man 

 is lying. They will eat nearly all the wood of his strong box, 

 leaving a mere shell no thicker than the paper on which this 

 account is printed. They will devour all his collection of plants, 

 beasts, birds and insects ; and a table or any other article of 

 furnitiire, if left too long in one position, will be utterly ruined 

 by the Termites, which have a fashion of eating away all the 

 interior, but leaving just a thin shell, which looks as if nothing 

 were the matter. 



Extirpating them is a difficult task. It is true that, if the 

 mats, clothes, and other household goods are washed with a 

 solution of corrosive sublimate, the Termites will not touch 

 them ; but as the articles which can be thus protected are neces- 

 sarily few in number, the best method is to extirpate them. This 

 can only be done by going to the fountain-head, and cutting off 

 the supply. It is useless to destroy the workers or soldiers, for 

 they are replaced as fast as killed. But, if the queen be destroyed, 

 the supply of eggs is at once stopped, the subjects lose heart, 

 and the colony dies off. 



When the adult Termites leave their homes, they often fly in 

 such clouds that they fiU the rooms, and even put out the lamps 

 by their numbers. As soon as they touch ground they shed 

 their wings, and then they begin to find how many enemies they 

 have. Of the myriad hosts that pour into the evening air, not 

 one in twenty thousand survives to found a new colony. They 

 have foes above, below, and on every side. The bats and goat- 

 suckers hold high festival on these evenings when the Termites 

 are abroad, and after the insects have cast their wings they are 

 pursued by ants, toads, spiders, and a host of other enemies. 



We will now pass to the European Termites, whose history is 

 elaborately given by M. de Quatrefages. Eochefort, Saintes, and 



