904 
TER 
TER 
are continued on all sides to the outward shell, and reaching 
up within it two-thirds or three-fourths of its height. All 
these chambers, and passages leading to and from them, 
being arched, help to support one another: and the exterior 
building supports them on the outside. Our limits will not 
allow our describing all the subterranean galleries or pas¬ 
sages, and the manner in which they are artfully made to 
communicate with different parts of the building, and to suit 
the convenience of the labourers and soldiers, as thorough¬ 
fares for passing and repassing with their loads of materials 
and provisions. 
There are other nests or habitations constructed by other 
species, which are in the form of turrets, or upright cylin¬ 
ders, and contain a number of cells: they are of two sizes, 
for the accommodation of a larger and smaller species: and 
again another kind of nests, which is the habitation of a dis¬ 
tinct species; this is generally spherical or oval, and built in 
trees. 
Of the three orders above-mentioned, the labourers, which 
are about one-fourth of an inch long, and twenty-five of 
them weigh about a grain, are the most numerous; e. g. in 
the termes bellieosus, there seem to be at least one hundred 
labourers to one of the fighting insects or soldiers. The 
soldiers are about half an inch long, and equal in bulk to 
fifteen of the labourers; the mouth of the latter is evidently 
calculated for gnawing and holding of bodies, w'hereas that 
of the former, or soldiers, has its jaw shaped like two sharp 
awls, a little jagged, and as hard as a crab’s claws, so that 
they are incapable of any thing but piercing or wounding: 
in insects of the third order, which have arrived at their per¬ 
fect state, the head, thorax, and abdomen, are wholly dif¬ 
ferent from those of the other orders, and they are furnished 
with four large brownish transparent wings; their length is 
six or seven-tenths of an inch, and each is equal in bulk to 
thirty labourers: they have now two eyes which are visible, 
whereas if they had them before they are not distinguishable. 
These insects are gathered and eat by the inhabitants, and 
reckoned both delicious and nourishing food. The king and 
queen are lodged in apartments, which are closed up, so that 
a passage remains merely for the ingress and egress of the 
labourers and soldiers, but at which (as we have already said) 
neither of the royal pair can come out : and in the business 
of propagation the abdomen of the female extends to an 
enormous size, so that an old queen's will be fifteen hundred 
or two thousand times the bulk of the rest of her body, and 
twenty or thirty thousand times the bulk of a labourer, and 
by its peristaltic motion, are protruded eggs to the amount 
of sixty in a minute, or eighty thousand and more in twenty- 
four hours: the eggs are removed by the attendants into the 
nurseries, and after they are hatched, the young are provided 
with every thing necessary till they are able to shift for 
themselves. It is remarkable of all the different species of 
termites, that the working and fighting insects never expose 
themselves to the open air; but either travel under ground, 
or within such trees or substances as they destroy, or through 
pipes made of the same materials with their nests. The ter¬ 
mites which build in trees, frequently construct their nests 
within the roofs and other parts of houses, to which they 
do considerable damage, unless soon extirpated; and the 
larger species enter under the (foundations of houses, 
through the floors, or bore through the posts of build¬ 
ings, making lateral perforations and cavities, as they pro¬ 
ceed. They are equally destructive when they get into a 
trunk containing clothes and other things, and into stores, 
&c. 
Upon opening the hills in which the termites lodge, the 
behaviour of the soldiers excites admiration. When a breach 
is made, however quickly it be done, a soldier will run out, 
and walk about the breach, as if to see whether the enemy is 
none, or to examine what is the cause of the attack. He 
will sometimes return again, as if to give the alarm; but in a 
short interval he is followed by two or three others, running 
as fast as they can, and these are followed by a large body, 
others also succeeding them, as long as any one continues to 
batfer their building: nor is it easy to describe the rage an^ 
fury w'hich they manifest on the occasion; biting every thing 
in their way, and making a vibrating noise, like the ticking 
of a watch, perceptible at the distance of three or four feet. 
If they get hold of any one who attacks their habitation, 
they will in an instant suck out blood enough to weigh 
against their whole body; and if they chance to wound the 
leg, the stain upon the stocking will be seen to extend an 
inch in width. They make their hooked jaws to meet at the 
first stroke, nor will they quit their hold, but suffer them¬ 
selves to be pulled away leg by leg, and piece after piece, 
without the least attempt to escape. If, however, they are 
left to themselves undisturbed, they will, in less than half an 
hour, retire into the nest, as if they conceived their castle to 
be secure. Before they all get in, the labourers will be seen 
in motion, hastening to bring materials for repairing the 
breach. This they do without mutual obstruction, though 
their number be immense, and the work is soon finished. 
While the labourers are thus employed, the soldiers take no 
part with them. On a renewed attack, the labourers run 
with celerity into the numerous pipes and galleries with 
which the building is perforated ; and the soldiers rush out 
as numerous and as vindictive as before. One circumstance 
more deserves to be mentioned; and that is the loyalty and 
fidelity displayed by the labourers and soldiers in their at¬ 
tendance on the royal chamber. This chamber is a large 
nest, is capacious enough to hold many hundreds of the 
attendants, besides the royal pair, and it is always found full. 
These faithful subjects never abandon their charge in the last 
distress, but rather die in their defence than desert them. If 
in an attack upon the hill, you stop short of the royal cham¬ 
ber, and cut down about half of the building, and leave 
open some thousands of galleries and chambers, they will all 
be shut up with their sheets of clay before the next morning. 
If even the whole is pulled down, and the different buildings 
are thrown together in a heap of confused ruins, provided 
the king and queen are not destroyed or taken away, every 
interstice between the ruins, at which either cold or wet can 
possibly enter, will be so covered, as to exclude both; and 
if the insects are left undisturbed, in about a year they will 
will raise the building to nearly its pristine size and gran¬ 
deur. 
There is another species, called the marching termites, 
which is much larger, and seems to be less frequent than the 
other. 
TERMIGNON, a small town of Savoy, district of Mau- 
rienne, near the river Arcq. Population 1100. Here is an 
iron forge and a manufacture of anchors; 12 miles east-north¬ 
east of St. Andre. 
TE'RMINABLE, adj. Limitable; that admits of bounds. 
.TERMINALIA, in Antiquity, feasts celebrated by the 
Romans, in honour of the god Terminus. 
Varro is of opinion, that this feast took its name from its 
being at the term or end of the year; but Festus is of a dif¬ 
ferent sentiment, and derives it from the name of the deity 
in whose honour it was held. 
TERMINALIA [so named, it ispresumed, from the leaves 
in clusters terminating the branches, with spikes of flowers 
intermixed.], in Botany, a genus of the class polygamia, 
order monoecia, natural order ofelseagni (Juss .)—Generic 
Character. Hermaphrodite flowers, at the lower part of the 
raceme, flowering first.—Calyx: perianth one-leafed, supe¬ 
rior, five-cleft, coloured within; segments ovate, acute, 
equal. Corolla none. Nectary pitcher-shaped, in the 
bottom of thecalyx, consisting of five small hispid corpuscles. 
Stamina: filaments ten, awl-shaped, from erect spreading, 
longer than the calyx, and inserted into the bottom of it. 
Anthers roundish, erect. Pistil: germ inferior, ovate-oblong. 
Style filiform, erect, length of the stamens. Stigma simple. 
Pericarp: drupe oval, depressed, two-grooved; or compress¬ 
ed, acuminate. Seed nut oval-oblong, two-valved; kernel 
oblong. Males superior, flowering later. Calyx, as in the 
hermaphrodites. Corolla none. Nectary, as in the herma¬ 
phrodites. Stamina, as in the hermaphrodites .—Essential 
Character. 
