ENTOMOLOGY. 



They sometimes in carrying on their attacks, discover 

 (although it is difficult to conceive how) that the post has 

 some weight to support, and then if it is a convenient track 

 to the roof, they bring their mortar and fill up all or most 

 of the cavities, leaving the necessary roads, and as fast as 

 they take away the wood, replace the vacancy with that 

 material. This they work together more closely and com- 

 pactly than any human art or strength could ram it, and 

 when the house is pulled to pieces to examine the posts, the 

 greater part is found transformed from wood to clay. 



These singular insects are not less expeditious in de- 

 stroying the shelves, the wainscot and other fixtures of a 

 house than the house itself, they are particularly fond of 

 Pine boards and Fir, which they excavate in a wonderful 

 way, carrying away the inside and leaving only a paper- 

 like surface, which will not weigh more than two sheets of 

 pasteboard. On these accounts the inhabitants are careful 

 to set their chests and boxes on stones or bricks so as to raise 

 the bottoms above the ground, which preserves them from 

 being so readily discovered by these insects, and also the 

 numerous tribes of Cockroaches, Centipedes Millepedes, 

 Scorpions and other noisome insects. Madam Merian de- 

 scribes a kind of Ant in the East Indies, which is smaller 

 than the Termites, which strip the trees of their leaves, 

 which they cut into a round form similar to a Parasol, and 

 are seen travelling along their roads, each with one of these 

 small coverings in his mouth, from whence they received 

 the name of the Parasol Ants. There is also another which 

 is found in Tobago which is highly mischievous to wooden 

 buildings, but of which no complete description has yet 

 been imparted by any writer upon Natural History. 



