the Termites of Africa and other hot Climates • 
air, as well as from their enemies, of which the. ants, being 
the moft numerous, are the moil: formidable. 
The Termites , except their heads, are exceeding foft, and 
covered with a very thin and delicate fkin ; being blind, they 
are no match on open ground for the ants, who can fee, and are 
all of them covered with a ftrong horny fhell not eafily pierced,, 
and are of difpoiitions bold, active, and rapacious. Whenever 
the Termites are diflodged from their covered ways, the various- 
fpecies of the former, who probably are as numerous- 
above ground as the latter are in their fuh terraneous paffages,.. 
inftantly feize and drag them away to their nefts, to feed the 
young brood. (33) (34) (35), The Termites are therefore exceeding: 
felicitous 
(33) Sir hans seoane was certainly miftaken in his account of the Wood’ Ants *„ 
it is utterly improbable that they fhould go into the nefts of the red Ants and kill 
them. It is rnoft probable, the. error has arifen from Sir hans’s having confounded 
the two genera of infefts the Formica and Termes together, which made 
him never fpeak of them with precifion. The reverfe of his account is mod: 
likely, which is, that the Formica? will follow their plunder into the nefts- 
of the Termites and deftroy. them; for the latter always keep within their 
nefts or covered ways, avoiding all communications with other infefts and 
.animals, and never meddling with them but when dead ; whereas the 
Formiecs ramble about every where, and enter every cranny and hole that is large 
enough, and attack not only infeffs and reptiles but even large animals. See 
sloane’s Voyage to Jamaica, vol. II. p. 221, 222. tab. 23S. Hift, de VAcademie 
Roy ale des Sciences, 1701, p. 16. Four mis de Vijllc, 
(34) niGON mentions another fort of Ants , and defcribes the. galleries of tire 
Termites . Eicon’s Barbadoes, p. 64, 65. 
(35) ME'Ri an fays, the Ants make nefts above eight feet high, by which liappre- 
hend fhe means the nefts of the Termites ■ hut in fpeaking of the manners of the 
infects ftie certainly means fome fpecies of the Formica . Thofe which are de- - 
fcribed as ftripping. the trees are a fpecies called, in Tobago, Para-fo’.-Ants , be- 
eaufe . they cut out of the leaves of certain trees and plants pieces alrnoft circular,. 
snd 
