The Ant-lion.—Of the ant-lion, whose larvæ have earned a bad renown from their predaceous ingenuity, Ceylon has, at least, four species, which seem peculiar to the island.[1] This singular creature, preparatory to its pupal transformation, contrives to excavate a conical pitfall in the dust to the depth of about an inch, in the bottom of which it conceals itself, exposing only its open mandibles above the surface; and here every ant and soft-bodied insect which, curiosity tempts to descend, or accident may precipitate into the trap, is ruthlessly seized and devoured by its ambushed inhabitant.
1: Palpares contrarius, Walker; Myrmeleon gravis, Walker; M. dirus, Walker; M. barbarus, Walker.
The White Ant—But of the insects of this order the most noted are the white ants or termites (which are ants only by a misnomer). They are, unfortunately, at once ubiquitous and innumerable in every spot where the climate is not too chilly, or the soil too sandy, for them to construct their domed edifices.
These they raise from a considerable depth under ground, excavating the clay with their mandibles, and moistening it with tenacious saliva[1] until it assume the appearance, and almost the consistency, of sandstone. So delicate is the trituration to which they subject this material, that the goldsmiths of Ceylon employ the powdered clay of the ant hills in preference to all other substances in the preparation of crucibles and moulds for their finer castings; and KNOX says, in his time, "the people used this clay to make their earthen gods of, it is so pure and fine."[2] These structures the termites erect with such perseverance and durability that they frequently rise to the height of ten or twelve feet from the ground, with a corresponding diameter. They are so firm in their texture that the weight of a horse makes no apparent indentation on their solidity; and even the intense rains of the monsoon, which no cement or mortar can long resist, fail to penetrate the surface or substance of an ant hill.[3]
1: It becomes an interesting question whence the termites derive the large supplies of moisture with which they not only temper the clay for the construction of their long covered-ways above ground, but for keeping their passages uniformly damp and cool below the surface. Yet their habits in this particular are unvarying, in the seasons of droughts as well as after rain; in the driest and least promising positions, in situations inaccessible to drainage from above, and cut off by rocks and impervious strata from springs from below. Dr. Livingstone, struck with this phenomenon in Southern Africa, asks: "Can the white ants possess the power of combining the oxygen and hydrogen of their vegetable food by vital force so as to form water?"—Travels, p. 22. And he describes at Angola an insect (A. goudotti? Bennett.) resembling the Aphrophora spumaria; seven or eight individuals of which distil several pints of water every night.—P. 414. It is highly probable that the termites are endowed with some such faculty: nor is it more remarkable that an insect should combine the gases of its food to produce water, than that a fish should decompose water in order to provide itself with gas. FOURCROIX found the contents of the air-bladder in a carp to be pure nitrogen.—Yarrell, vol. i. p. 42. And the aquatic larva of the dragon-fly extracts air for its respiration from the water in which it is submerged. A similar mystery pervades the inquiry whence plants under peculiar circumstances derive the water essential to vegetation.
2: KNOX'S Ceylon, Part I, ch. vi. p. 24.
3: Dr. HOOKER, in his Himalayan Journal (vol. i. p. 20) is of opinion that the nests of the termites are not independent structures, but that their nucleus is "the debris of clumps of bamboos or the trunks of large trees which these insects have destroyed." He supposes that the dead tree falls leaving the stump coated with sand, which the action of the weather soon fashions info a cone. But independently of the fact that the "action of the weather" produces little or no effect on the closely cemented clay of the white ants' nest, they may be daily seen constructing their edifices in the very form of a cone, which they ever after retain. Besides which, they appear in the midst of terraces and fields where no trees are to be seen; and Dr. Hooker seems to overlook the fact that the termites rarely attack a living tree; and although their nests may be built against one, it continues to flourish not the less for their presence.
In their earlier stages the termites proceed with such energetic rapidity, that I have seen a pinnacle of moist clay, six inches in height and twice as large in diameter, constructed underneath a table between sitting down to dinner and the removal of the cloth.
As these lofty mounds of earth have all been carried up from beneath the surface, a cave of corresponding dimensions is necessarily scooped out below, and here, under the multitude of cupolas and pinnacles which canopy it above, the termites hollow out the royal chamber for their queen, with spacious nurseries surrounding it on all sides. Store-rooms and magazines occupy the lower apartments, and all are connected by arched galleries, long passages, and doorways of the most intricate and elaborate construction. In the centre and underneath the spacious dome is the recess for the queen—a hideous creature, with the head and thorax of an ordinary termite, but a body swollen to a hundred times its usual and proportionate bulk, and presenting the appearance of a mass of shapeless pulp. From this great progenitrix proceed the myriads which people the subterranean hive, consisting, like the communities of the genuine ants, of labourers and soldiers, which are destined never to acquire a fuller development than that of larvas, and the perfect insects which in due time become invested with wings and take their departing flight from the cave. But their new equipment seems only destined to facilitate their dispersion from the parent nest, which takes place at dusk; and almost as quickly as they leave it they divest themselves of their ineffectual wings, waving them impatiently and twisting them in every direction till they become detached and drop off, and the swarm, within a few hours of their emancipation, become a prey to the night-jars and bats, which are instantly attracted to them as they issue in a cloud from the ground. I am not prepared to say that the other insectivorous birds would not gladly make a meal of the termites, but, seeing that in Ceylon their numbers are chiefly kept in check by the crepuscular birds, it is observable, at least as a coincidence, that the dispersion of the swarm generally takes place at twilight. Those that escape the caprimulgi lose their wings before morning, and are then disposed of by the crows.