312 ' Microscopical Essays., 



While fome are employed in gutting the polls, others afcend 

 from them, entering a rafter, or fome other part of the roof. If 

 they once find the thatch, which feems to be a favourite food, 

 they foon bring up wet clay, and build their pipes, or galleries, 

 through the roof in various directions, as long as it will fupport 

 them ; fometimes eating the palm-tree leaves and branches of 

 which it is compofed, and perhaps (for variety feems very pleafmg 

 to them) the rattan, or other running plant, which is ufed as a 

 cord to tie the various parts of the roof together, and that to the 

 ports which fupport it. Thus, with the affiftance of the rats, 

 who, during the rainy feafon, are apt* to fhelter themfelves there, 

 and to burrow through it, they very foon ruin the houfe, by 

 weakening the faftenings and expofing it to the wet. In the 

 mean time, the polls will be perforated in every direction, as 

 full of holes as that timber in the bottoms of {hips, which has 

 been bored by the worms ; the fibrous and knotty parts, which 

 are the harden 1 , being left to the laft. 



Thefe infects are not Iefs expeditious in dertroying the fhelves, 

 wainfcotting, and other fixtures of an houfe, than the houfe 

 itfelf. They are continually piercing and boring in all directions, 

 and fometimes go out of the broadfide of one poll into that of 

 another adjoining to it ; but they prefer and always deftroy the 

 fofter fubftances the firft, and are particularly fond of pine and 

 fir-boards, which they excavate and carry away with wonderful 

 difpatch and aftonifhing cunning : for, except a fhelf has fome- 

 thing ftanding upon it, as a book, or any thing elfe which may 

 tempt them, they will not perforate the furface, but artfully pre- 

 ferve it quite whole, and eat away all the infide, except a few 

 fibres, which barely keep the two fides connected together ; fo 

 6 that 



