182 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
ruins dotting the surface of the plain. These singu- 
lar insects form a community under the government 
of a king and queen. The population is divided into 
three classes. The first class comprises the belligerent 
portion, which are always prepared to defend their 
habitations from the assaults of an enemy, and they 
inflict so sharp a wound when intruded upon, as im- 
mediately to make the blood copiously flow. The 
second division includes those which perform all the 
labours of their community; these build their tene- 
ments and repair whatever breaches may be made 
either by foes or accident. The third class consists 
of those that propagate. From these they select 
kings and queens which almost immediately emigrate 
and erect new states, that shortly become crowded 
with a busy and destructive population. 
When they fix upon an object of destruction 
they first cover it with a thin coat of clay mois- 
tened by their own secretions ; under this crust are 
innumerable passages in which they work unseen, 
and with the most destructive celerity. Here they 
labour in perfect security until they consume the 
whole material, finally leaving nothing but the ar- 
tificial incrustation with which they had overspread 
it, and which assumes the exact form of the object 
destroyed. 
“ They generally enter the body of a large tree,” 
says an observing traveller, “ which has fallen through 
age or has been thrown down by violence, on the side 
next the ground, and eat away at their leisure within 
the bark, without giving themselves the trouble either 
to cover it on the outside or to replace the wood which 
