ENTOMOLOGY. 



The Termites Arborum, those which build in trees, 

 frequently establish their nests within the roofs and other 

 parts of houses, to which they do considerable damage if 

 not early extirpated. 



The large species are however more difficult to be 

 guarded against, since they make their approaches chiefly 

 under ground, descending below the foundations of houses 

 and stores at several feet from the surface, and rising again, 

 either in the stores or entering at the bottoms of the posts, 

 of which the sides of the buildings are composed, boring 

 quite through them, following the course of the fibres to the 

 top, or making lateral cavities as they proceed. 



While some are employed in gutting the posts, others 

 ascend from them, entering a rafter, or some other part of 

 the roof. If they once find the thatch, which is their 

 favorite food, they soon bring up wet clay and build their 

 pipes and galleries, through the roof in various directions 

 as long as it will support them. In the mean time the posts 

 will be perforated in every direction, as full of holes as that 

 part of a ship's bottom which has been bored by worms, the 

 fibrous and knotty parts being left to the last. The sea 

 worms, so pernicious to shipping, appear to have the same 

 use and office allotted them which the Termites have on 

 land. They appear to be the most important beings in the 

 great chain of creation, and pleasing demonstrations of that 

 infinitely wise and gracious Power which formed the whole 

 in harmonious order. If it was not for the rapacity of these 

 and such other animals, tropical rivers and indeed the ocean 

 itself would be choaked up with the bodies of trees annually 

 carried down by rapid torrents, and as many of them would 

 last for ages, would be productive of evils, of which we can 

 hardly form any adequate idea. 



