298 
HALF HOURS WITH LNTSECTS. [Packard. 
are “composed of a black mud, which is brought from a few 
inches below the white sand, and are built in the form of an 
imperfect cone, or bell-shaped, having their tops rounded. 
These nests are generally about four or five feet high.” 
(Smeathman.) Other nests are built in the form of a mush¬ 
room. 
The most elaborate architectural works, perhaps, under¬ 
taken by any insects are the nests of the Termes bellicosus , 
observed by Smeathman. Our figure (from Figuier, after 
Smeathman) will give an idea of the nest and its interior, 
with the Termes family grouped in the foreground. Smeath¬ 
man, a traveller in Guinea, who published his account of 
these insects in 1781, claims, and we think with reason, that 
“ the Termites resemble the ants also in their provident and 
diligent labor, but surpass them, as well as the bees, wasps, 
beavers and all other animals which I have ever heard of, in 
the arts of building, as much as the Europeans excel the 
least cultivated among the savages. It is more than prob¬ 
able they excel them as much in sagacity and the arts of 
government; it is certain they show more substantial in¬ 
stances of their ingenuity and industry than any other ani¬ 
mals ; and do in fact lay up vast magazines of provisions 
and other stores ; a degree of prudence which has of late 
years been denied, perhaps without reason, to the ants.” 
The nests or “termitary” of this white ant are more or 
less conical or sugar-loaf-shaped, rising from ten to twelve 
feet above the surface of the ground. Indeed, they are said 
to be still higher by Jobson in his “History of Gambia,” 
quoted by Smeathman as follows: “The Ant hills are re¬ 
markable cast up in those parts by Pismires, some of them 
twenty foot in height, of compasse to contayne a dozen 
men, with the heat of the sun baked into that hardnesse, 
that we used to hide ourselves in the ragged tops of them, 
when we took up stands to shoot at deere or wild beasts.” 
(Purchas’s Pilgrims, vol. ii, p. 1570.) Smeathman tells us 
10 
