opposite margins meet at the under-surface of the midrib, where they are secured by a glutinous matter.

The Coushie or Sauba Ant, which exists in Tropical America in boundless profusion, will in a very short time strip off the leaves of an entire field and carry them to its subterranean abodes. Even where their nest is a mile distant from a plantation, these depredators know how to find it, and soon form a highway about half a foot broad, on which they keep up the most active communications with the object of their attack. In masterly order, side by side, one army is seen to move onward towards the field, while another is returning to the nest, each individual carrying in its jaws a circular piece of leaf, about the size of a sixpence, which is held vertically by one of its edgesa circumstance from which the creature is also called the parasol or umbrella ant. If the distance is too great, a party meets the weary carriers halfway and relieves them of their load. Although innumerable ants may thus be moving along, yet none of them will ever be seen to be in the other's way, and all goes on with the regularity of clockwork. A third party is no less actively employed on the scene of destruction, cutting out circular pieces of the leaves, which as soon as they drop upon the

MOUNDS OF THE TERMITES.

233

ground are immediately seized by the attentive and indefatigable carriers.

The use of the leaves is to thatch the domes of their curious edifices, and to prevent the loose earth from falling in. Some of these domes are of great size, measuring two feet in height and forty feet in diameter; and yet they are still far surpassed in extent by the subterranean galleries which these industrious little creatures form, and whose extent may be conjectured from the fact, that when sulphur-smoke was blown into a nest, one of the outlets was detected at a distance of twenty yards. Division of labour is carried out to a wonderful extent in these buildings, for the labourers which gather and fetch the leaves do not place them, but merely fling them down on the ground, and leave them to a relay of workers, who lay them in their proper order. As soon as they have been arranged, they are covered with little globules of earth, and in a very short time they are quite hidden by their earthy covering

These structures, however wonderful, are far surpassed by those of the termites. Their cone-shaped or domelike edifices rise to the height of ten, twelve, or even twenty feet, with a corresponding diameter; and although made merely of clay, which the termites excavate with their mandibles from a considerable depth underground, moistening it with tenacious saliva, their strength is such that hunters are accustomed to mount upon them for the purpose of looking out for game; and even the intense rains of the monsoons, which no cement or mortar can long resist, fail to penetrate their surface. Only the underpart of the mound is inhabited by the white ants, the upper portion serving principally as a defence from the weather, and to keep up in the lower part the warmth and moisture necessary to the hatching of the eggs and the cherishing of the young ones. In the centre and almost on a level with the ground is placed the sanctuary of the whole community-the large cell, where the queen resides with her consort, and which she is doomed never to quit again, after having been once enclosed in it by her faithful subjects, since the portals soon prove too narrow for her rapidly-increasing bulk. Encircling the regal apartment extends a labyrinth of countless chambers and nurseries, all connected by arched galleries, long passages, and doorways of the most intricate and elaborate

constructions. The subterranean passages which lead from the mound are hardly less remarkable than the building itself. Perfectly cylindrical, and lined with a cement of clay similar to that of which the bill is formed, they sometimes measure a foot in diameter. They run in a sloping direction under the bottom of the hill, to a depth of three or four feet, and then ramifying

horizontally into numerous branches, ultimately rise near to the surface at a considerable distance. At their entrance into the interior of the hill, they are connected with a great number of smaller galleries, which ascend the inside of the outer shell in a spiral manner, .and winding round the whole building to the top, intersect each other at different heights, opening either immediately into the dome in various places, and into the lower part of the building, or communicating with every part of it by other smaller circular passages.

If the colossal structures of the termites are worthy of our highest admiration, our wonder increases when we consider that all these labours are performed in total darkness, for the astonishing little animals are constantly working underground.

CHAPTER XXIII.

SPIDERS.

Venomous Apparatus-Spinnarets-The Spider's Web-Patience of the SpidersHunting Spiders-Trapdoor Spiders-Water Spiders-The Raft SpiderEnemies of the Spiders-Fecundity-Maternal Affection-The Stalita Tænaria.

INCAPABLE of muscular exertion, and of a texture so loose and soft as to be torn to pieces or crushed by the slightest degree of force, the spiders seem exposed to every attack; and yet, helpless and harmless as they appear to be, they are able to subdue animals much larger than themselves; for as a compensation for their weakness, they are endowed with a most admirable industry, an exemplary patience, an indomitable perseverance, and the power of secreting two liquids which fully answer all the purposes of offence or defence which their mode of life requires. One of these liquids is a poison which at once paralyses the resistance of their prey, and acts with the same instantaneous and fatal effect upon a fly or a beetle as prussic-a acid on the human economy; the other, a glutinous fluid, which, concreting in the air, forms those silken threads which their wonderful instinct turns to so many valuable uses.

The structure of the venomous apparatus of the viper is justly admired, but that of the spider is a no less beautiful piece of mechanism. It is by means of the two mandibulæ or forciples with which their mouth is armed,that they inflict their deadly wound. These mandibles are each armed with a moveable and extremely sharp claw (a), near to the point of Spider's Mandible which is a minute orifice (b), from which there es- ified). capes a drop of poisonous liquid, that spreads itself over the whole wound the instant that it is inflicted. This orifice, which

(highly mag

is so extremely minute as to require a high magnifying power for its perception, communicates with a fine or narrow excretory canal (c) situated in the interior of the mandible, and given off from the true secreting organ—a gland (d) lodged in the interspace of the muscles of the thorax, or breast, whose compression causes the immediate propulsion of the liquid.

A still more wonderful apparatus is that which serves the spiders for the formation of their threads. The spinnarets, or organs which emit the glutinous fluid, are generally six in number, and situated at the posterior part of the body. Each of the spinnarets is pierced by an infinite number of small holes, or beset with hairy appendages terminating in fine-drawn points, from each of which there escape as many little drops of a liquid, which becoming dry the moment it is in contact with the air, forms so many delicate threads. Immediately after the filaments have passed out of the pores of the spinnaret, they unite first together and then with those of the neighbouring spinnarets to form a common thread; so that the thread of the spider, which measures only 1-4000th or even 1-8000th of an inch in diameter, is composed of an immense number of minute filaments, perhaps several thousand, of such extreme tenuity that the eye cannot detect them until they are all twisted together into the working thread.

Spider & Spinnarets (highly magnified).

But why this complicated process, it may be asked; why this original excessive subdivision of a filament, which, when complete, far surpasses in fineness the finest thread which can possibly be spun by machinery proceeding from human hands? The reason is obvious, for it was absolutely necessary that as soon as the glutinous fluid emerged from the body, it should instantly consolidate into a thread firm enough to be worked or not to give way too suddenly under the spider's weight; and it is evident that by its extreme division, so beautifully provided for by the microscopical perforation of the sievelike spinnarets, the process of desiccation, having a larger surface to act upon, must be considerably hastened. Thus there is nothing superfluous in this wonderful mechanism, which, perfect in design