7S2 
TER 
T E S 
the house by weakening the fastenings, and 
exposing it to the wet. In the mean time 
the posts will be perforated in every direc- 
tion, as full of holes as that timber in the bot- 
toms of ships which has been bored by the 
worms ; the fibres and knotty parts, which 
are the hardest, being left to the last. 
They sometimes, in carrying on this busi- 
ness, seem to find that the post has some 
weight to sup} * rt, and then if it is a convenient 
track to the roof, or is itself a kind of wood 
agreeable to them, they bring their mortar, 
and till all or most of the cavities, leaving the 
necessary roads through it, and as fast as they 
take away the wood, replace the vacancy 
with that material; which being worked to- 
gether by them closer and more compactly 
than human strength or art could ram it, when 
the house is pulled to pieces, in order to ex- 
amine if any of the posts are fit to be used 
again, those of the softer kinds are often re- 
duced almost to a shell, and all or a greater 
part transformed from wood to clay, as solid 
and as hard as many kinds of free-stone used 
for building in England. It is much the 
same when the termites bellicosi get into a 
chest or trunk containing clothes and other 
things ; if the weight above is great, or they 
are afraid of ants or other enemies, and have 
time, they carry their pipes through, and re- 
place a great part with clay, running their 
galleries in various directions. The tree ter- 
mites indeed, when they get within a box, 
often make a nest there, and being once in 
possession, destroy it at their leisure. 
When the termites attack trees and 
branches in the open air, they sometimes 
vary their manner of doing it. If a stake in a 
hedge has not taken root and vegetated, it 
becomes their business to destroy it. If it 
has a good sound bark round it, they will 
enter at the bottom, and eat all but the bark, 
which will remain, and exhibit the appear- 
ance of a solid stick (which some vagrant 
colony of ants or other insects often shelter 
in till the winds disperse it); but if they can- 
not trust the bark, they cover the whole stick, 
with their mortar, and then it looks as if it 
had been dipped into thick mud that had 
been dried on. Under this covering they 
work, leaving no more of the stick and bark 
than is barely sufficient to support it, and 
frequently not the smallest particle ; so that 
upon a very small tap with your walking- 
stick, the whole stake, though apparently as 
thick as your arm, and five or six feet long, 
loses its :orm, and disappearing like a shadow, 
falls in small fragments at your feet. 
The first object of admiration which strikes 
one upon opening their hills, is the beha- 
viour of the soldiers. If you make a breach 
in a sligat part of the building, and do it 
quickly with a strong hoe, or pick-axe, in the 
space of a few seconds a soldier will run 
out, and walk about the breach, as if to see 
whether the enemy is gone, or to examine 
what is the cause of the attack. He will 
sometimes go again, as if to give the alarm ; 
but most frequently, in a short time, is fol- 
lowed by a large body, who rush out as fast 
as the breach will permit them; and so they 
proceed, the number increasing, as long as 
any one continues battering their building. 
It ’is not easy to describe the rage and fury 
they shew. In their hurry they frequently 
miss their hold, and tumble down the sides 
of the hill, but recover themselves as quickly 
TER 
I as possible ; and, being blind, bite every 
thing they run against, and thus make a 
crackling noise, while some of them beat re- 
peatedly with their forceps upon the build- 
ing, and make a small vibrating noise, some- 
thing shriller and quicker than the ticking of 
a watch. If they get hold of anyone, they 
will in an instant let out blood enough to 
weigh against their whole body; and if it is 
the leg they wound, you will see the stain 
upon the stocking extend an inch in width. 
{ hey make their hooked jaws meet at the 
first stroke, and never quit their hold, but 
suffer themselves to be pulled away leg by 
'eg, and piece after piece, without the least 
attempt to escape. On the other hand, keep 
out ot their way, and give them no interruption, 
and they will in less than half an hour retire 
into the nest, as if they supposed the won- 
derful monster that damaged their castle to 
be gone beyond their reach. Before they are 
all got in you will see the labourers in mo- 
tion, and hastening in various directions to- 
ward the breach, every one vrith a burthen 
ot mortar in his mouth ready-tempered. 
This they stick upon the breach as fast as 
they come up, and do it with so much dis- 
patch and facility, that although there are 
thousands, or rather millions, of them, they 
never stop or embarrass one another; and you 
are most agreeably deceived, when, after an 
apparent scene of hurry and confusion, a 
regular wall arises, gradually filling up the 
chasm. While they are thus employed, al- 
most all the soldiers are retired quite out of 
sight. 
A renewal of the attack, however, instantly 
changes the scene. At every stroke we hear 
a loud hiss; and on the first the labourers 
run into the many pipes and galleries with 
which the building is perforated, which they 
do so quickly that they seem to vanish, for in 
a few seconds all are gone, and the soldiers 
rush out as numerous and as vindictive as be- 
fore. 
Previously to breeding, a very surprising 
change takes place in the body of the queen 
or breeding animal. The abdomen of this 
female, in thetermesbellicosus especially, be- 
gins gradually to extend and enlarge to such 
an enormous size, that an old queen will have 
it increased so as to be fifteen hundred or 
two thousand times the bulk of the rest of 
her body, and twenty or thirty thousand 
times the bulk of a labourer. Mr. Someth- 
in an conjectures the animal is upwards of 
two years old when the abdomen is increased 
to three inches in length, and has sometimes 
found them of near twice that size. The ab- 
domen is now of an irregular oblong shape, 
being contracted by the muscles of every 
segment, and is become one vast matrix full 
of eggs, which make long circumvolutions 
through an innumerable quantity of very 
minute vessels that circulate round the inside 
in a serpentine manner, which would exercise 
the ingenuity of a skilful anatomist to dissect 
and develope. This singular matrix is not 
more remarkable for its amazing extension 
and size, than for its peristaltic motion, 
which resembles the undulating of waves, and 
continues incessantly without any apparent 
effort of the animal ; so that one part or 
other alternately is rising and sinking in per- 
petual succession, and the matrix seems never 
at rest, but is always protruding eggs to the 
amount of sixty in a minute, or eighty thou- 
sand and upward in one day of twenty-four 
hours. These eggs are instantly taken from 
her body by her attendants (of whom there are 
always, in the royal chamber and the galle- 
ries adjacent, a sufficient number in waiting) 
and carried to the nurseries, which in a great 
nest may some of them be four or live feet 
distant in a straight line, and consequently 
much farther by their winding galleries. 
Here, after they are hatched, the young are 
attended and provided with every thing ne- 
cessary until they are able to shift for them- 
selves, and take their share of labour. 
TERM IN ALIA, a genus of plants of the 
class of polygamia, and order of moncecia. 
The male calyx is quinquepartite ; there is no 
corolla ; the stamina are ten in number. The 
hermaphrodite flower is the same with that of 
the male; there is one style; the fruit, which is 
a drupe or plum, is below, and shaped like a 
boat. There are six species. 
TERMINATOR, in astronomy, a name 
sometimes given to the circle of illumination, 
from its property of terminating the bounda- 
ries of light and darkness. 
TERNSTROEM1A, a genus of the class 
and order polyandria monogynia. The ca- j 
lyx is five-parted ; the corolla one-petalled, 1 
wheel-shaped; anthers thick at the top; I 
berry two-celled. There are five species,’ 
trees of the East and West Indies. 
TERRA PON DEROSA. See Barytes, 
TER1UE FILIUS, son of the earth, a 
student of the university of Oxford, formerly- 
appointed, in public acts, to make jesting and 
satyrical speeches against the members there- 
of to tax them with any growing corruptions, 
&c. 
r I ERRE-PLEIN, or Terre-plain, in 
fortification, the top, platform, or horizontal 
surface, of the rampart, upon which the cannon 
are placed, and where the defenders perform 
their office. It is so called because it lies le- 
vel, having only a little slope outwardly to 
counteract the recoil of the cannon. Its 
breadth is from 24 to 30 feet; being termi- 
nated by the parapet on the outer side, and 
inwardly by the inner talus. 
TERR ELLA, or little earth, is a magnet 
turned of a spherical figure, and placed so 
that its poles, equator, &c. do exactly cor- 
respond with those of the world. It was so 
first called by Gilbert, as being a just repre- 
sentation of the great magnetic globe we in- 
habit. Such a terrella, it was supposed, if 
nicely poised, and hung in a meridian like a 
globe, would be turned round like the earth 
in 24 hours by the magnetic particles pervad- 
ing it ; but experience has shewn that this is 
a mistake. 
TERRIER, a book or roll, wherein the 
several lands, either of a private person, or 
of a town, college, church, & c. are described. 
It should contain the number of acres, and 
the site, boundaries, tenant’s names, &c. of 
each piece or parcel. 
TESSELLATED PAVEMENTS, those 
of rich mosaic work, made of curious square 
marbles, bricks, or tiles, called tesselaj from 
their resembling dice. 
TEST, a vessel used in metallurgy for ab- 
sorbing the scoriae of metallic bodies when 
melted. See Cupellation, Chemistry, 
and Metallurgy. Some of the German 
writers recommend, both for tests and cupels, 
a sort of friable opake stone, called white 
spath, which appears to be a species of gyp- 
