in which the firm had warehouses, and
nowhere else. The towns of La Rochelle,
Rochefort, De Saintes, Tonnay-Charente,have
all become the prey of these terrible little
miners. La Rochelle is not however so
completely invaded as the other towns, the
termites only occupying the préfecture and
the arsenal, which are at opposite parts of
the town. But the préfecture, and a few
neighbouring houses, are the principal scene
of their devastations. Here they have taken
complete possession, for in the garden it is
impossible to plant a stick or leave a piece of
wood without finding it attacked next day.
The trees themselves are sometimes bored to
the tips of their branches. Inside the
préfecture the apartments and offices are also
invaded. In one of the rooms the ceiling
having given way was repaired, and the day
after the workmen had left the place was
covered by hanging galleries resembling
stalactites, many inches in length.
Sometimes the galleries are fastened along the
walls, and run from one story to another
through the plaster. Messieurs Milne-
Edwards and Blanchard saw galleries in
some of the cellars which descended from
the ceiling down to the ground without being
supported. And Monsieur Bobe-Moreau
saw some isolated galleries made in arches,
or even thrown horizontally like a tubular
bridge, to reach the paper of some bottles, or
the contents of a pot of honey.

As the termites in Rochelle—like all their
kindred—always work in darkness, incessant
vigilance can alone disclose their retreats and
prevent their ravages. One day the archives
of the department were found almost entirely
destroyed, without a single trace of the
injury appearing upon the surface. The
termites had reached the cases by boring through
the woodwork, and then at their leisure had
devoured the official documents, respecting
with the greatest care the upper leaf and the
edges of the leaves, so that a case containing
nothing but shapeless detritus appeared to
be full of bundles in a perfect state.

The hardest woods are attacked in the
same way. A clerk having slipped upon
the staircase, fell, and pushed his hand
up to the wrist into what appeared to be a
solid oaken beam. The whole of the inside
was reduced to a powder, and the surface
layer left intact by the termites was not
thicker than a sheet of paper.

Smeathman relates several instances of
the rapidity of destruction of these insects.
Having left a compound microscope in a
warehouse at Tobago for a few months, on
his return he found that a colony of a small
species of white ant had established
themselves in it, and had devoured all the
woodwork, leaving nothing but the metal and
glasses. A Mr. Forbes having shut up his
rooms for some weeks, on examining them
observed a number of galleries running in
various directions towards some prints and
drawings in English frames, the glasses of
which appeared to be uncommonly dull,
and the frames covered with dust. "On
attempting," he says, "to wipe it off, I was
astonished to find the glasses fixed to the
wall, not suspended in frames as I left them,
but completely surrounded by an incrustation
cemented by the white ants, who had actually
eaten up the deal frames and back-boards
and the greater part of the paper, and left
the glasses upheld by the incrustation or
covered way, which they had formed during
their depredations." About the commencement
of the present century the superb
residence of the Governor-General at Calcutta,
which cost the East India Company immense
sums of money, was almost destroyed by the
attacks of these insects. An engineer, who
had been obliged to reconnoitre in a district
of Brazil, left upon his table on going to bed
his trunk, thinking it was quite safe; but
next morning, to his dismay, he found all his
clothes and papers reduced to powder.

Many means have been tried to destroy
these formidable little enemies. Waterings
with tar-water, frequent and deep ploughing,
and circular ditches dug round the trunks,
have been employed to protect gardens and
fruit trees. Essence of turpentine and
powdered arsenic have been vaunted as destroyers
of the insects when collected together in a
termite hill, and a traveller named
Chanvallon affirms that arsenic has answered
the purpose perfectly in Martinique. Two
Frenchmen, Messieurs Fleurian and Sauvé,
attempted to destroy the colony installed in
the préfecture of La Rochelle. After a
number of unsuccessful attempts, they thought of
calling in the aid of auxiliaries, and of
employing the black ants to fight the white ants.
Having placed in the same bottle an equal
number of these two sorts of insects, the
battle instantly commenced, and the result
was soon foreseen. The termites made the
deepest wounds—especially the soldiers, who,
with a single stroke of their terrible mandibles,
cut the ants in twain like a pair of
scissors. In a short time the ants were
exterminated, leaving the termites masters
of the field, with only a few slain. The
next day, however, nearly half of the termites
were found dead, having been poisoned by
the acid secreted by the ants.

It has been said that it is easier for men to
defend themselves from the attacks of large
wild animals than from the ravages of these
dangerous little insects. And considering
their destructive activity and their
incalculable numbers, an observer might be
tempted to ask for what purpose these
insects were created, and why they have
been endowed with an instinct so prejudicial
to man? Investigation, however, shows that
in the warm climates, where the termites
abound, the vegetation is developed with
extreme rapidity and astonishing abundance,
this activity being counterbalanced by the