INSECT A. 
173 
his pellet and retires, up bobs tlie great bead and red forceps of a 
soldier, as it were from a watch-tower, for a geneial view around, 
to see that all is right, and, il it is not so, bis excitement becomes 
very great. Illustrative of this, and the rapidity with which they 
communicate to each other, I placed some books paitly eaten by 
them in the middle of a teak window-seat. In four days they con- 
structed a tunnel along the angle formed by the window-seat and 
frame, for a length of about five feet, communicating with the pile 
of books by two branch tunnels, each four inches long. They worked 
away busily at each end prolonging the tunnel, about an inch of 
that last executed being moist similar to newly-mixed mortar. 
Workers were running out in the direction of the proposed exten- 
sion of the tunnel, and returning without any apparent result, until 
a closer observation showed that they were conveying back with 
them minute fragments of debris fallen from the books, no doubt to 
be remasticated and converted into fresh mortar to help on the 
progress of the work ; and thus these little engineering builders 
worked on until I broke the branch tunnels, and almost instanta- 
neously the workers at each end of the main tunnel, more than 
two feet distant, were withdrawn, and the red forceps of an excited, 
soldier protruded, showing plainly that injury of the branch tunnels 
and imminent danger to the whole colony was in a moment, as if by 
electricity, telegraphed throughout the whole line of work. On the 
same occasion I also tested their perseverance, for they continued 
to repair the damage I repeatedly caused to their work, through 
several days, before abandoning the locality. 
Like other species they swarm in a winged state, when each insect 
is provided with four narrow, fawn-coloured, gauzy wings, about twice 
as long as the body. They generally fly at night, after rain, in the 
months of December and January, I believe as soon as they emerge 
from the eggs ; when they settle and pair together they wriggle 
off their wings and enter either the ground or anything that is near 
and suitable to their taste. The conditions almost indispensable to 
them are, heat with moisture, darkness, and perfect stillness, so that 
they rarely attack doors, window sashes, or things that are fre- 
quently in motion. What they love best is a water cask in a suuny 
place, or the massive tiebeam of a building, into which they enter 
by one or two small holes no larger than pins, heads, and trouble no 
one until the whole collapses in a cloud ol dirt and dust, perhaps 
