TERMES, the 1Vhite Ant ; Tertnites (pl.).
Dewalc, . . . . HIND. I Chellu, . . . . TAM. Dotus, . . . . ChatI1H1H, . . . TEL.
Species of this insect are abundant in India, Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, and St. Ilelena, and attract attention from the large conical mounds of earth which they erect, and the destruction they produce in timber. The ordinary white ant has the head large and rounded, and, besides com pound eyes, it has three ocelli, or simple eyes, situated on the upper surface ; the antennm are as long as the head and thorax, inserted in front of the eyes, and composed of about 18 joints. The abdonaen is terminated by two small jointed ap pendag-es. As the lofty mounds of earth are all carried up from beneath the surface, a cave of corresponding dimensions is necessarily scooped out below, and here, under the multitude of miniature cupolas and pinnacles which canopy it above, the termites hollow out the royal chamber for their queen, with spacious nurseries surround ing it on all sides, aud all are connected by arched galleries, long passages, and doorways of the most intricate and elaborate construction. In the centre and underneath the spaciou 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 propor tionate bulk, and presenting the appearance of a mass of shapeless pulp, weighing a-s much as 30,000 labourers. From this great progenitrix proceed the myriads that 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 larvw, 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, wearing 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 !rats, which are instantly attracted to them as they issue in a cloud from the ground. Those that escape from the caprimulgi fall a prey to the crows on the morning succeeding their -flight. Tho natives of India, also, in the morning, gather and eat them, fried with a little gin, as they aro pleasant tasted. One species of white ant, the Termes taprobanes, was at one time believed by 31r. Walker to be peculiar to Ceylon ; but it has been found in Sinnatra and Borneo, and in some parts of Hindustan. In Ceylon, Termea monoceros builds its nest in the hollow of an old tree, and, unlike the others, carries on its labours without the secrecy and protection of a covered way. The cobra snake generally makes its home in the caverns of the white ant, and it is believed to live on the termites within. At Vasarapad, 3Iadras, are many ant-bills with numerous cobra snakes. About one mile from Somerset, in the northern extreme of Queenshmd, at the eastern entrance to Albany pass, white ants have raised their hills to heights of 16 feet.—Tennenes Ceylon, p. 413 ; Aforesby, p. 13. See Ants ; White Ants.