
NEUROPTERA. 409 
chase to them and eat them by legions. The negroes in Southern 
Africa cannot be sated with them. They gather such as have fallen 
into the water and roast them like coffee; thus prepared, they eat 
them by handfuls, and find them delicious. The Indians smoke 
the termites’ nests, and catch those that have wings. They knead 
them up with flour and make a sort of cake of them. Travellers, 
moreover, all agree in speaking of them as very nice food, 
comparing their flavour to that of marrow or of a sugared 
cream. Smeathman prefers them to the famous palm worm (ver 
palmiste of the colonists), a delicacy known in South America, 
which is the larva of the Calandera palmarum, a species of beetle. 
It seems, however, that an abuse of fried termites brings on a 
dysentery which may prove mortal. 
All the species of termites are miners, but the greater number 
are also architects and masons. A few make their nest round a 
branch of a tree. This nest is of enormous dimensions : it is as large 
asatun. The illustration (Fig. 382)—after a drawing in Smeath- 
man’s work—shows a nest of the Termes bellicosus, composed of bits 
of wood firmly stuck together with gum. Above their subterranean 
| galleries the greater part of termites construct vast edifices, which 
contain their magazines and nurseries. The Zermes mordax and 
| Termes atrox raise perfect columns, surmounted. by capitals which 
| project beyond them and give them the appearance of monstrous 
/ mushrooms. These columns attain a height of twenty inches, 
with a diameter of five; they are constructed with a black clay, 
| which, worked up by the insects, acquires great hardness. The 
interior is hollow, or, rather, perforated with irregular cells; but 
| the most curious edifices are those of Termes bellicosus. These are 
| irregularly conical mounds, flanked by a certain number of turrets 
| decreasing in height. Smeathman gives them a height of from 
ten to twelve feet; but Jobson* affirms that he has seen some as 
high as twenty feet. If men constructed monuments so dispro- 
portionate to their size, the great pyramid of Giseh, instead of 
being one hundred and forty-six métres in height, would be one 
}thousand six hundred, and would be higher than the Puy-de- 
Déme! 
These knolls of earth are of a solidity which will bear any trial. 
* “ VWistory of Gambia.” 






























