TERMITES. 
461 
habitation and seize them, and carry them away, they 
are alert in repairing the external breaches which 
accident makes in the walls of their galleries, by 
sticking into them patches of mud and compost. 
“ Smeathman, who has very minutely described and 
illustrated the tribes of Termites, and who considers 
their whole economy of life as a providential relation 
between the decomposition of vegetable substances 
and the means of accelerating vegetable decay, says 
they do not usually attack trees in a sound state : 
^ Vigorous healthy trees do not require to be de- 
stroyed, and accordingly these consumers have no 
taste for them.’ When a large tree falls from age 
or accident, there are Termites that enter it on the 
side next to the ground and devour it at leisure. 
The inside is soon perforated and destroyed, and 
nothing but the outside case remains. It retains its 
form for a time after this process of excavation has 
been gone through, but it falls away and crumbles at 
a touch, and is so unsubstantial, that Smeathman 
very amusingly observes, ‘ you may as well step 
upon a cloud,’ as set foot on one of these disem 
bowelled masses of the forest. 
“ The general remark that the Termite does not 
attack growing trees, is the fact to which I would 
direct attention. The depredation committed by the 
ground Termite on a held of sugar-canes contradicts 
this conclusion, and the general deduction that 
Smeathman would draw from the economy of life of 
the tribe. There is, however, a portion of the history 
given by him of the pursuits and habits of some of 
them, that bears upon their attacks upon sapid vege- 
