Goldsmith's Natural history : with notes from all the popular treatises that have been issued since the time of Goldsmith ... / [edited] by Henry Innes, with a life of Oliver Goldsmith by George Moir Bussey.

Oliver Goldsmith

Date:: [18??]

Credit: Goldsmith's Natural history : with notes from all the popular treatises that have been issued since the time of Goldsmith ... / [edited] by Henry Innes, with a life of Oliver Goldsmith by George Moir Bussey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

826/860 page 450

$'I’his liabifation is constructed with great artiiice; and the cells are so numeroua and even, that a honey-comb scarce exceeds them in number and regularity.' llie inhabitants of this edifice seem to be under a very strict regulation. At tlie slightest warning they will sally out upon whatever disturbs them ; and if they have time to arrest their enemy, he is sure to find no mercy. Sheep, hens, and even rats are often destroyed by these merciless insects, and their tlesh de- voured to the bone. No anatomist in the world can strip a skeleton so cleanly as they ; and no animal, how strong soever, when they have once seized upon it, has power to resist them. It often happens that these insects quit their retreat in a body, and go in quest of adventures.f “During my stay,” says Smith, “at Cape Corse Castle, a * Structures ok Termites, or Whitb Ants.—When we look back upon the details which we have given of the industry and in- genuity of numerous tribes of insects, both solitary and social, we are induced to think it almost impossible that they could be sur- passed. The structures of wasps and bees, and still more those of the wood-ant {Formica rufcL), when placed in comparison with the size of the insects, equal our largest cities compared with the stature of man. But when we look at the buildings erected by the white ants of tropical climates, all that we have been surveying dwindles into insignificance. Their industry appears greatly to .surpass that of our ants and bees, and they are certainly more skilful in architectural contrivances. The elevation, also, of their edifices, is more than five hundred times the height of the builders. W’ere our houses built according to the same proportions, they would be twelve or fifteen times higher than the London Monu- ment, and four or five times higher than the pyramids of Egypt, with corresponding di- mensions in the basements of the edifices. These statements are, perhaps, necessary, to impress the extraordinary labours of ants upon the mind ; for we are all more or less sensible to the force of comparisons. The analogies between the works of insects and of men are not perfect, for insects are all provided with instruments, peculiarly adapted to the end which they instinctively seek, while man has to form a plan by progressive thought and upon the experience of others, and to com- plete it with tools which he also invents. The termites do not stand above a quarter of an inch high, while their nests are fre- quenty twelve feet; and Jobson mentions some which he had seen as high as twenty feet; “ of compasse,” he adds, “ to coutayne a dozen men, with the heat of the sun baked into that hardnesse, that we used to hide our- selves in the ragged toppes of them when we took up stands to shoot at deere or wild beasts.” Bishop Heber saw a number of these high ant-hills in India, near the princi- ])al eutrance of the Sooty, or Moorshedabad river. “ Many of them,” he says, “ were five or six feet high, and probably seven or eight feet in circumference at the base, partially overgrown with grass and ivy, and looking at a distance like the stumps of decayed trees. I think it is Ctesios, among the Greek writers, who gives an account, alluded to by Lucian, in his ‘ Cock,’ of monstrous ants in India, as large as foxes. The falsehood probably ori- ginated in the stupendous fabrics which they rear here, and which certainly might be sup- posed to be the work of a much larger animal than their real architect.” Heroiiotus has a similar fable of the enormous size and bril- liant appearance of the ants of India. Nor is it only in constructing dwelliugs for themselves that the termites of .Africa, and of other hot climates, employ their masouic skill. Though, like our ants and wasps, they are almost omnivorous, yet wood, particularly when felled and dry, seems their favourite article of food; but they have an utter aver- sion to feeding in the light, and always eat their way with all expedition into the interior. It thence would seem ueces'sary for them either to leave the bark of a tree, or the outer portion of the beam or door of a house, undevoured, or to eat in open day. They do neither; but are at the trouble of construct- ing galleries of clay, iii which they can con- ceal themselves, and feed in security. In all their foraging excursions, indeed, they build covert ways, by which they can go out and return to their encampment.—Insect Arc. f Amusements ok Insects.—In spe.aking of what ap|K'ar to be the sports of insects, we cannot omit taking notice of the very singular proceedings of some species of ants, which, at the intervals of busy industry, amuse themselves with something apparently ana- logous to our wrestling and racing matches. Bonnet says, he observed a small s]>ecies of ants, which employed themselves in carrying each other on their bucks, the rider holding with his mandibles the neck of his bearer, and embracing it closely with his legs, the position which the renowned John Gilpin may have sometimes been dispose^ to assume in his famous race through l^lmonton. But though the very palpable mistakes committed by Bonnet respecting these very ants may, perhaps, tend to invalidate his authority with respect to their riding, we have the undoubted testimony of both Gould and Huber fur their$