the Termites of Africa and other hot Climates . 1 63 
Among thefe you will find, I muft confefs, feme very- 
extraordinary relations, and many that do not admit a pofti- 
bility of demonfliration ; flich is the defcription of the form of 
an army of the Termites viarum marching, and the account 
of the regularity ufed by the Termites belhcofi in repairing a 
breach in their hills. But the very lingular fails, of which 
you have the proofs before you, are fufficient 1 fhould conceive 
to procure me belief for the others. Should any perfon doubt, 
I would wifh them to confider, that a ftudent of natiire 
and nature’s laws, in any matter relating thereto, has no temp- 
tation to tranfgrefs the bounds of truth. I am very fen fi bits, 
that the works of the creation, and the order thereof, are 
eftablifhed in the higheft wifdom ; that it is as abfurd to attempt 
to exaggerate as to detrail from them ; and can only ferve to 
expofe the ignorance of him who attempts it. Befides, what 
I have here advanced muft be confirmed or contradiiled in two 
or three years, fince it will doubtlefs be examined into by all 
the curious who vifit tropical regions. 
I have obferved before, that there are of every fpecies of 
Termites three orders ; of thefe orders the working infeils or 
labourers are always the mod numerous ; in the Terrnes belllcofus 
there feems to be at the leaftone hundred labourers toone of the 
fighting infeils or foldiers. They are in this ftate about one- 
fourth of an inch long, and twenty-five of them weigh about a 
grain ; fo that they are not fo large as feme of our ants (tab. X. 
fig. 6.). From their external habit and fondnefs for wood, they 
have been very expreflively called Wood Lice by feme people, and 
the whole genus has been known by that name, particu- 
larly among the French. They referable them, it is true, 
very much at a diftance, but they run as faft or falter than any 
Y2 other 
