Habitations of the Ter-mites, or "White Ants.".

[Ant-hills in the distance. On the right a vertical section of an ant-hill, showing the cells and passages. A. Royal Cell. B. Upper Chamber. b, b. Nurseries and Magazines. c, c. Subterranean passages. At d, e, and fare shown the worker ant, queen, and soldier, of the natural size. The queen's body, however, grows to be three or four inches in length, and nearly an inch in diameter.]

any rain that may chance to get in run off, without injury to the dwelling or its inhabitants.

10. There are also subterranean" passages, often more than a foot in diameter, and perfectly cylindrical," which extend downward three or four feet, and then branch out horizontally on every side, sometimes to the distance of several hundred feet. They are the grand outlets by which the termites carry on their depredations at a distance from their habitations, and whence they obtain the clay for building and repairs. These passages, at their entrance into the interior, are connected with ascending galleries, like roads cut out of the side of a mountain, which give the inhabitants an easy ascent into the upper parts of the dwelling.

11. But might it not be of some interest to know who

are the inhabitants of this wonderful city, and what are their manners, customs, habits, and history? The great mass of the inhabitants is found to consist of a class called workers—the smallest of the ants, who erect and repair the buildings, collect provisions, wait upon the queen, convey her eggs to the nurseries, and take care of them and the young. These workers are the insects in their larvæ form, and, although they are entirely blind, they are guided in their labors by an unerring instinct.

12. There is also a class called neuters, who are also. blind. They are less in number than the workers, but they greatly exceed them in size, and have immense heads, armed with long and powerful jaws. They are soldiers by birth and profession, and theirs is the duty of acting as sentinels, and of defending their homes when attacked; and some of them are always to be found in the royal chamber, acting as body-guard to the king and queen, whom they will defend, even unto death, against all enemies. Vast numbers of males and females are also found in the ant-hills near the close of every season, and these alone have wings.

13. When any one is bold enough to attack a termite fortress and make a breach in its walls, the workers, who are incapable of fighting, retire within, and the soldiers rush forth in the greatest rage and fury. Woe to him whose hands or legs they seize upon; for their fangedr jaws strike deep, and they never quit their hold, even though they are pulled limb from limb. Whenever the walls are injured the laborers soon repair them, thousands of them bringing up, from the underground pits or passages, little bits of well-worked mortar, which they arrange in perfect order, and which soon becomes nearly as hard as stone. Though thousands-perhaps often millions-thus work together, and although they are totally blind, they never embarrass or interrupt one another.

14. The following is a brief history of the founding of one of their colonies. When, at the close of the dry sea

son of the year, two or three, or half a dozen of the workers, who are always roaming about, meet with a pair of the male and female ants, they seize upon them; and although they treat them with the greatest tenderness, make them their king and queen, and build for them a little mansion. of clay, they never allow them to pass beyond the royal chamber, which henceforth becomes at once their palace and their prison. Like many human potentates, they have purchased their sovereigntyt at the dear rate of the sacrifice of liberty!

S

15. When the queen is fairly settled she grows rapidly, and it is said that, in time, her body equals in size the bodies of twenty thousand workers! She also produces, during a life of two years, an almost countless number of eggs, sometimes at the rate of eighty thousand in twentyfour hours! As she increases in size, the walls of the royal chamber are pulled down and enlarged for her accommodation. The workers are also constantly occupied in building new apartments for the eggs and the young.

16. The eggs are carried by the workers to the royal nurseries, where some become workers, and some soldiers, and these are without wings; others become winged males and females. The latter, when fully grown, go forth in immense swarms to found new colonies; but, as they soon cast off their wings, and have none of the fighting qualities of the soldiers, most of them become the prey of bats, birds, reptiles, and of other insects. Even the natives consider them an excellent article of food.

17. Were it not for these numerous checks to their increase, they would soon swarm in such numbers as to lay waste vast regions of country; for, in a few days, a colony of them will bore down and actually consume the largest trees in the neighborhood of their dwelling. Some of these insects have found their way, probably by ships, into southern France and Spain, where they are very much dreaded, as trees, garden-fences, and almost entire buildings have actually been eaten up by them.

1

C

W

pu

18. If these creatures, who perform such wonderful labors, were equal to man in size, and if their turreted castles were increased in the same proportion, the latter would soar to the astonishing height of more than half a mile, and their tunnels would be more than three hundred feet in diameter! Before such structures the Pyramids of Egypt and the aqueducts" of Rome would lose all their celebrity," and dwindle into insignificance.

[The sagacity of different species of animals, as shown in their dwellings. The nest of the Polistes wasp. The nest of the Myrapetra. Nests of a South American mud-wasp. The Termites, or white ants. Their conical clay dwellings. Royal chamber, royal apartments, nurseries, magazines, connecting galleries. Vaulted upper chamber. Subterranean passages. The inhabitants of this wonderful city. The workers. The neuters, or soldiers. The males and females. The defense of their habitations. Repairs of the walls. The founding of a Termite colony. The queen. Growth of the colony. Great destruction of the males and females. The works of the Termites compared with those of man.]

THE FRUITFULNESS OF INSECTS.

1. WITH very few exceptions, insects are produced from eggs, most of which are laid in autumn and hatched in spring. Most insects are exceedingly prolific. The queen of the honey-bees lays fifty thousand eggs, and the female white ant forty or fifty millions in a year! It is calculated that the descendants of a little green Aphis, that infests plants, would number, in one season, if none of them were destroyed, not less than a thousand million millions! (See Fourth Reader, p. 212.)

2. If it were not for the ten thousand ways in which insects are destroyed-by exposure to the elements, by preying upon one another, and by furnishing food to higher orders of animals-they would soon swarm in such myriads that the earth itself could not contain them. And yet, so admirably are their relations with one another and with plants adjusted, that the just equilibrium of animal and vegetable life is seldom destroyed. Often the rapid increase of insects has a wise end in view. Linnæus calculated hat three flesh flies, and their immediate progeny, would eat up the carass of a horse sooner than a lion could do it. Where insects swarmhether in the air or in the water-they act as scavengers to remove imrities that would otherwise be fruitful sources of disease.

APPENDIX.

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE INSECTS FIGURED IN THE FOREGOING PAGES.

FIRST ORDER: SHEATH-WINGED INSECTS. Page 269.

1. COATED SAPERDA (Superda vestita), covered with a close greenish-yellow down or nap. The grub is a destructive borer of the lindens or bass-woods.

2. GILDED DANDY (Eumolpus auratus), brilliant golden-green above, and deep purplish below. Found in great numbers on the leaves of the dog's-bane in July and August.

3. STRIPED CUCUMBER-BEETLE (Galeruca vittata), light yellow above, a black head, and a broad black stripe on each wing-cover.

4. SPURRED SAPERDA (Saperda calcarata), blue-gray, with dull yellow markings. Their grubs, yellowish-white borers, have almost entirely destroyed our Lombardy poplars.

5. PAINTED CLYTUS (Clytus pictus), a Capricorn beetle, velvet-black, ornamented with yellow bands. Their grubs are the most destructive borers of the locust-tree.

6 and 7. BROWN AND WHITE-STRIPED SAPERDA (Saperda bivittata). Its grub or larva (7) is very destructive to the apple, quince, and thorn trees. In May or June the grub changes to a winged beetle, and comes forth from the tree in the night only.

8. THREE-TOOTHED SAPERDA (Saperda tridentata), dark brown, with rusty red stripes and black dots. The grubs often destroy the elm.

9. RUSTY-BLACK CALLIDIUM (Callidium bajulus), found on the fir, spruce, and hemlock. 10. BLACK RICE-WEEVIL of the South (Calandra oryzae), differs from the wheat-weevil in having two red spots on each wing-cover.

11. BEAUTIFUL CLYTUS (Clytus speciosus), black, with yellow stripes and yellow legs. The grub bores into the trunk of the sugar-maple, where it forms long winding galleries. 12. VIOLET CALLIDIUM (Callidium violaceum), blue violet. The grubs are very destructive to pine-trees and pine lumber.

13 and 14. LADDER CHRYSOMELA (Chrysomela scalaris), dark green, with silvery wingcovers ornamented with green spots, and rose-red wings beneath them. A very beautiful beetle. 14. The grub. Found on the linden (bass-wood) and elm.

15 and 16. SEVEN-SPOTTED LADY-BIRD (Coccinella septem-punctata), yellowish-red wingcovers, with black spots. It looks like a colored turtle. 16. The grub of the same.

17. MILK-WEED BEETLE (Asclepias Syriaca, or Chrysomela trimaculata), blue, orange, and black. Found on the common milk-weed.

18. A LADY-BIRD flying. 19. A nine-spotted Lady-bird (Coccinella novem-notata) at rest; often found in great numbers on potato stalks and leaves, feeding on the plant-lice. 20. ROSE CHAFER (Melolontha subspinosa), body ashen yellow. One of the greatest Scourges of our gardens and nurseries.

Page 270. MAY BEETLE (Lachnosterna, or Phyllophaga quercina), chestnut-brown, smooth, covered with little dots, as if pricked with the point of a needle.

Page 271. SIX-SPOTTED TIGER BEETLE (Cicindela sexguttata).

We have here given representations of the Curculio, or plum-weevil, which is said to be, of all insects, the most destructive to our common fruits. Fig. 1, side view of the head of the curculio magnified, showing the snout, antennæ, and eye; 2, the curculio, natural size; 3, the curculio at rest, magnified; 4, the same, with wings expanded.

Curculio Nenuphar. comes forth a complete winged beetlee.

The common curculio is a dark, yellowishbrown beetle, scarcely one fifth of an inch long, exclusive of the snout, and with white, yellow, and black spots. It commits its worst ravages upon the plum, but sometimes infests the cherry, apple, apricot, nectarine, and peach. Soon after the fruit is set, it makes a small crescent-shaped incision with its snout through the tender skin, bores a little hole there, turns round, and places a single egg near the opening, and then, with its snout takes this egg and pushes it down to the bottom of the cavity; after which it covers the wound with a gummy substance, which holds the cut ends of the skin together. The insect hatched from the egg is a little whitish grub, without feet, but with a distinct, rounded, light-brown head. This grub burrows into the fruit, which thereby becomes diseased, and drops off before i is ripe, when the grub quits the fruit, burrow into the ground, and about three weeks late