the Termites of Africa, and other hot Clirflfitks: lyy 
air, as well as from their enemies, of which the ants, being 
the moil 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 homy fhell not eafily pierced, 
and are of difpofitions bold, adlive, 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 fub terraneous paffages, 
inftantly-.feize and drag them away to their nefts, to feed the 
young brood (33) (34) ( 35 ) e The Termites are therefore exceeding 
felicitous 
* (33) Sir hans. sloane was certainly miftakenrin his account of the Wood Ants; 
it is utterly improbable that they {hould go into the nefts of the red Ants and kill 
them. It is moll probable, the error has arifen from Sir hans’s having confounded 
the two genera of infedls the Formica and • Termes together, which made 
him never fpeak of them with precifion. The reverfe of his account is rnoft 
likely, which is, that the Formic# 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 infeds and 
animals, and never meddling with them but when dead ; whereas the 
Formic ce ramble about every where, and enter every cranny and hole that is large 
enough, and attack not only infects and reptiles but even large . animals. See 
sloane’s Voyage to Jamaica, vol. II. p. 221, 222. tab. 238. Flift . de V Academic 
Royale des Sciences, 1701, p. 16, Fourmis de VJiie. 
( 34 ) LiGON mentions anothery^r/ of Ants, and deferibes the galleries of the 
Termites . ligon’s Barbadoes, p. 64, 65. 
(35) merian fays, the Ants make nefts above eight feet high, by which I appre- 
hend (he means the nefts of the Termites ; but in fpeaking of the manners of the 
infers fhe certainly means fome fpecies of the Formica. Thofe which are de- 
ferred as ftripping the trees are a fpecies called, in Tobago, Fara-fol-Ants , be- 
eaufe they cut out of the leaves of .certain trees and plants pieces almoft: circular, 
and 
