Latreille’s species of white ant (Termes lucifugus, Rossi), formerly mentioned as found in the south of Europe, appear to have more the habits of the jet-ant, described page 301, than their congeners of the tropics. They live in the interior of the trunks of trees, the wood of which they eat, and form their habitations of the galleries which they thus excavate. M. Latreille says they appear to be furnished with an acid for the purpose of softening the wood, the odour of which is exceedingly pungent. They prefer the part of the wood nearest to the bark, which they are careful not to injure, as it affords them protection. All the walls of their galleries are moistened with small globules of a gelatinous substance, similar to gum Arabic. They are chiefly to be found in the trunks of oak and pine trees, and are very numerous.[DP]
Another of the species (Termes arborum), described by Smeathman, builds a nest on the exterior of trees, altogether different from any of the preceding. These are of a spherical or oval shape, occupying the arm or branch of a tree sometimes from seventy to eighty feet from the ground, and as large, in a few instances, as a sugar-cask. The composition used for a building material is apparently similar to that used by the warriors for constructing their nurseries, being the gnawings of wood in very small particles, kneaded into a paste with some species of cement or glue, procured, as Smeathman supposes, partly from gummiferous trees, and partly from themselves; but it is more probable, we think, that it is wholly secreted, like the wax of bees, by the insects themselves. With this cement, whatever may be its composition, they construct their cells, in which there is nothing very wonderful except their great numbers. They are very firmly built, and so strongly attached to the trees, that they will resist the most violent tornado. It is impossible, indeed, to detach them, except by cutting them in pieces, or sawing off the branch, which is frequently done to procure the insects for young turkeys. (See engraving, [p. 324], for a figure of this nest.)
This species very often, instead of selecting the bough of a tree, builds in the roof or wall of a house, and unless observed in time, and expelled, occasions considerable damage. It is easier, in fact, to shut one’s door against a fox or a thief, than to exclude such insidious enemies, whose aversion to light renders it difficult to trace them even when they are numerous.
[There are also termites in Europe, and the city of La Rochelle has suffered terribly from them. They eat the trees in the gardens, and not a stake can be driven into the ground, or even a plank left for twenty-four hours, without being attacked. They also enter the houses and utterly ruin them by eating every bit of timber that is used in them. In one instance, where a room had been repaired, the stalactitic galleries of the termites showed themselves the very day after the workmen had left the room.
They invaded the prefecture, and did exceeding damage, one of their feats of voracity being so extraordinary as to deserve mention. The archives of the department were left in boxes, and privately inspected. One day, when a paper was needed, the whole of the documents fell to pieces, and were metamorphosed as if by magic into a heap of clay. The termites had got into the boxes by boring through the wainscot of the room, and had then penetrated among the papers. They consumed every particle of them except the uppermost sheet and the edges, supplying their place with clay. The consequence was, that although the heap of documents seemed to be correct, there was nothing but a mass of clay galleries and a single sheet of paper at the top.
So voracious are they, that even a piece of paper wrapped round a bottle was eaten, the termites building a gallery of clay in order to reach it under cover.]
If we reflect on the prodigious numbers of those insects, and their power and rapidity of destroying, we cannot but admire the wisdom of Providence in creating so indefatigable and useful an agent in countries where the decay of vegetable substances is rapid in proportion to the heat of the climate. We have already remarked that they always prefer decaying or dead timber; and it is indeed a very general law among insects which feed on wood to prefer what is unsound; the same principle holds with respect to fungi, lichens, and other parasitical plants.
All the species of Termites are not social; but the solitary ones do not, like their congeners, distinguish themselves in architecture. In other respects, their habits are more similar; for they destroy almost every substance, animal and vegetable. The most common of the solitary species must be familiar to all our readers by the name of wood-louse (Termes pulsatorium, Linn.; Atropos lignarius, Leach)—one of the insects which produces the ticking superstitiously termed the death-watch. It is not so large as the common wood-louse, but whiter and more slender, having a red mouth and yellow eyes. It lives in old books, the paper on walls, collections of insects and dried plants, and is extremely agile in its movements, darting, by jerks, into dark corners for the purpose of concealment. It does not like to run straight forward without resting every half-second, as if to listen or look about for its pursuer, and at such resting times it is easily taken. The ticking noise is made by the insect beating against the wood with its head, and it is supposed by some to be peculiar to the female, and to be connected with the laying of her eggs. M. Latreille, however, thinks that the wood-louse is only the grub of the Psocus abdominalis, in which case it could not lay eggs; but this opinion is somewhat questionable. Another death-watch is a small beetle (Anobium tesselatum).