66 SOCIAL HABITATIONS. 
permitted the active insects to escape before the heat finally 
reached them, Dr. Savage waited until they had settled in 
their home, and then poured upon them a few gallons of 
boiling water, which was instantaneously fatal. As for cold 
water, they seem to care little for it; having been im- 
mersed for twelve hours, and although they were apparently 
dead when removed, yet they soon recovered themselves, 
and ran about as lively as ever. Their tenacity of life is 
indeed wonderful, and injuries which would immediately 
kill almost any creature seem to have no immediate effect 
upon their vigour. Another fact, illustrating their tenacity 
of life, may here be stated. 
“The head of one of the largest class, when dissevered 
from the body, grasped the finger of an attendant so furi- 
ously, as to cause an immediate flow of blood. It was left 
in a glass tumbler from three p.m. till the next morning 
at eight o'clock, when the finger was again applied, and 
apparently as severe a wound as before inflicted. Another 
individual of the same class was decapitated at seven A.M., 
and at half-past nine next morning, twenty-six and a half 
hours from the time of decapitation, a piece of newspaper 
was held between the jaws, which it grasped and retained 
with considerable force. 
“T then applied the small finger of my right hand, which 
it bit severely ; indeed, so powerful was the grasp, that the 
point of the mandibles met beneath the cuticle. It then 
partly withdrew one mandible, and, pointing it more per- 
pendicularly, penetrated deeper than the other, and thus 
at every stroke giving to the mandible a direction more 
vertical, wounding and cutting wider and deeper, precisely 
in the manner of the insect in possession of all its parts 
and powers. The sensation at each thrust was like that 
of a pin, and equally painful; and when the mandibles 
were withdrawn, the blood flowed as freely. The head 
