504 
WHITE ANTS. 
“ 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 de- 
stroy 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 appearance of a 
solid stick (which some vagrant colony of ants or 
other insects often shelter in till the winds disperse 
it) ; but if they cannot trust the bark, they cover 
the whole stick with their mortar, and it then 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 appa- 
rently as thick as your arm, and five or six feet 
long, loses its form, and, disappearing like a shadow, 
falls in small fragments at your feet. They gene- 
rally enter the body of a large tree, which has fallen 
through age or been thrown down by violence, on 
the side next the ground, and eat away at their 
leisure within the bark, without giving themselves 
the trouble either to cover it on the outside, or to 
replace the wood which they have removed from 
within, being somehow sensible that there is no 
necessity for it. These excavated trees have de- 
ceived me two or three times in running : for, at- 
tempting to step two or three feet high, I might as 
well have attempted to step upon a cloud, and have 
