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NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



dwellings in myriads. They do not appear to the sight, 

 but eat their way into the wood through tiny holes which 

 would be scarcely observable even by minute investigation. 

 Once inside, they literally eat up tiie whole woody fiber, 

 leaving nothing but a thin outside shell. The posts, the 





Warrior Termites. 



beams, the rafters of the houses, and every wooden thing 

 connected with them, share the same fate. To the eye 

 everything seems right, but suddenly the whole collapses 

 like the Deacon's one-horse shay, nothing remaining but 

 dust, and the uneaten wafer-like surface of the wood. 



7. In Sierra Leone, after a short absence from home, 



