430 



HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



description of those constructed by the white ants, or Termites, 

 a tribe alluded to in former letters. 



The different species, which are numerous, build nests of 

 various forms. Some ( T. atrox and mordax) construct upon 

 the ground a cylindrical turret of clay about three quarters 

 of a yard high, surrounded by a projecting conical roof, so as 

 in shape considerably to resemble a mushroom, and composed 

 interiorly of innumerable cells of various figures and dimen- 

 sions. Others (as T. destructor, T. arhorum Sm.) prefer a 

 more elevated site, and build their nests, which are of different 

 sizes, from that of a hat to that of a sugar-cask, and composed 

 of pieces of wood glued together, amongst the branches of 

 trees often seventy or eighty feet high. But by far the most 

 curious habitations, and to which, therefore, I shall confine a 

 minute description, are those formed by the Termes fatalis, a 

 species very common in Guinea and other parts of the coast 

 of Africa, of whose proceedings we have a very particular and 

 interesting account in the 71st volume of the Philosophical 

 Transactions, from the pen of Mr. Smeathman. 



These nests are formed entirely of clay, and are generally 

 twelve feet high and broad in proportion, so that when a 

 cluster of them, as is often the case, are placed together, they 

 may be taken for an Indian village, and are in fact sometimes 

 larger than the huts which the natives inhabit. The first 

 process in the erection of these singular structures is the ele- 

 vation of two or three turrets of clay about a foot high, and 

 in shape like a sugar-loaf. These, which seem to be the 

 scaffolds of the future building, rapidly increase in number 

 and height, until at length being widened at the base, joined 

 at the top into one dome, and consolidated all round into a 

 thick wall of clay, they form a building of the size above 

 mentioned, and of the shape of a hay-cock, which when 

 clothed, as it generally soon becomes, with a coating of grass^ 

 it at a distance very much resembles. When the building 

 has assumed this its final form, the inner turrets, all but the 

 tops, which project like pinnacles from different parts of it, 

 are removed, and the clay employed over again in other ser- 

 vices. 



It is the lower part alone of the building that is occupied 



