270 
THE SAVAGE WORLD. 
It makes its appearance as early in time as what the geologists call the coal- 
measures, and the termite of to-day has a well-authenticated genealogy, which 
puts to the blush those who date their family from so recent a period as the 
Norman Conquest. The termite is mostly an inhabitant of the tropics, but some 
species, commonly called white ants, are to be found everywhere, and inspire 
well-founded terror in the housekeeper and gardener. It mines its way through 
the world, and like the human miner, leaves nothing of the furniture or plants 
attacked except the excavation, or at best a thin covering which conceals the 
dangerous tunnel within. In India the ant has been known to thus mine the 
legs of tables, chairs and beds, and not to be discovered until the strength of 
materials was insufficient to support, the customary weight. One species of the 
termite ant builds in trees or in the roofs of houses. The fixtures of a 
house become one of 
its most transient fea¬ 
tures, for the ant, by 
working from within 
outward, cunningly 
conceals his depreda¬ 
tions. Though not 
generally addicted to 
literature, they will 
verify the statement of 
England’s Lord High 
Chancellor, that some 
books are to be tasted, 
others to be digested. 
The nests of the 
termite ant are so 
many in number, and 
so great in size, as to 
produce the effect of 
villages of barbarous 
peoples. In form like 
a sugar-loaf (conical), 
ten to twenty feet in 
height, covered by a 
triple-roofed dome, 
which is strong enough to support an ox. Within there are numerous apartments ; 
first, the royal chambers for the king and queen, then countless apartments 
used as nurseries ; yet again others which serve as magazines for storing food; 
and finally quarters for the soldiers and quarters for the laborers. At the 
beginning of the rainy season the winged ants appear, and from their number 
each colony selects its king and queen ; the rejected suitors, having no further 
mission in life, soon perish of neglect. The new king and queen are now 
immured in a cell, the entrance to which is too small to permit of their egress. 
Everything is theirs but freedom, for the wily ants do not trust their fortunes 
to the caprices of their monarchs, nor even to the accidents of parliamentary 
action, but act upon the belief that “ fast bind, fast find.” The queen lays at the 
rate of eighty thousand eggs a day, and the eggs, as fast as laid, are removed by 
warrior termites ( Formes bellicosus), soldier, workman, 
FEMARE SWORREN WITH EGGS 
MARE, AND 
