33 ^ 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
XXVII 
intricate labyrintli; some of them contain food, such as 
raspings of wood and gum. These chambers are by no 
means confined to the part of the termitarium above 
ground, but extend into the earth below, and to parts 
far beyond that occupied by its base. 
It is a remarkable feature of termites that the workers 
and soldiers never expose themselves to light; they 
either travel underground or within trees and substances 
they can destroy. When in search of plunder above 
ground, their pathways are really covered-ways, for they 
build tunnels of the same material of which the nest is 
constructed. Whenever the termites make a covered¬ 
way it has many ramifications, and if one of the covered- 
ways be destroyed by violence there are many avenues 
of escape without coming into the light. The galleries 
are large enough to allow them to pass each other. 
These insects are much disturbed when their covered- 
ways are broken, and they quickly repair them, because 
when termites appear above ground they are seized 
and destroyed by ants. 
Some species of termites build nests in the tops of 
trees, but the passages leading to the nest run up 
the trunk of the tree under cover, so that the nest in 
the tree-top is in connection with a nest of galleries in 
the earth beneath. 
On one occasion I saw a grove of trees with all the 
trunks covered with vertical lines of clay; of this 
curious appearance I find the explanation in Smeath- 
man’s paper :—If a piece of dead wood is covered with 
sound bark, they will eat all but the bark, which 
remains and exhibits the appearance of a solid stick. 
If they cannot trust the bark, they will cover the 
whole stick with their mortar and eat up the whole of 
the wood. Thus, when a large tree has fallen from age 
or violence, the termites will eat the woody part away, 
and a traveller finding a large tree trunk in his path 
steps upon it, when to liis surprise it gives way and he 
falls among the neighbouring bushes. In this way 
