standing in the middle between the sheltering wall and the tree, and working briskly with head and mandible to strengthen the position. The wall in fact forms a small moon-rampart, and as it grows higher and higher it soon becomes evident that it is going to grow from a low battlement into a long perpendicular tunnel running up the side of the tree. The workers, safely ensconced inside, are now carrying up the structure with great rapidity, disappearing in turn as soon as they have laid their stone, and rushing off to bring up another. The way in which the building is done is extremely curious, and one could watch the movement of these wonderful little masons by the hour. Each stone as it is brought to the top is first of all covered with mortar. Of course, without this the whole tunnel would crumble into dust before reaching the height of half an inch; but the termite pours over the stone a moist sticky secretion, turning the grain round and round with its mandibles until the whole is covered with slime. Then it places the stone with great care upon the top of the wall, works it about vigorously for a moment or two till it is well jammed into its place, and then starts off instantly for another load. Peering over the growing wall, one soon discovers one, two, or more termites of a somewhat larger build, considerably longer, and with a very different arrangement of the parts of the head, and especially of the mandibles. These important-looking individuals saunter about the rampart in the most leisurely way, but yet with a certain air of business, as if perhaps the one was the master of works and the other the architect. But closer observation suggests that they are in no wise superintending operations, nor in any immediate way contributing to the structure, for they take not the slightest notice either of the workers or the works. They are posted there in fact as sentries; and there they stand, or promenade about, at the mouth of every tunnel, like Sister Anne, to see if anybody is coming. Sometimes somebody does come, in the shape of another ant; the real ant this time, not the defenseless _Neuropteron_, but some valiant and belted knight from the warlike _Formicidæ_. Singly or in troops, this rapacious little insect, fearless in its chitinous coat of mail, charges down the tree trunk, its antennæ waving defiance to the enemy and its cruel mandibles thirsting for termite blood. The worker white ant is a poor defenseless creature, and blind and unarmed, would fall an immediate prey to these well-drilled banditti, who forage about in every tropical forest in unnumbered legion. But at the critical moment, like Goliath from the Philistines, the soldier termite advances to the fight. With a few sweeps of its scythe-like jaws it clears the ground, and while the attacking party is carrying off its dead, the builders, unconscious of the fray, quietly continue their work. To every hundred workers in a white-ant colony, which numbers many thousands of