goods to come from St. Domingo to Rochefort, to La Rochelle, and to other places in that neighbourhood which possess storehouses. The ravages which the termites have committed in the towns of La Saintonge are really frightful. Like Valencia, in New Granada, these towns will find themselves one of these days suspended over catacombs. At Tournay-Charente, the floor of a dining-room fell in, and the Amphytrion and his guests tumbled together in the cellar. There may be seen in the galleries of the Museum of Natural History of Paris the wooden columns which supported this room, and which were preserved by Audouin, who had been sent on a mission to report on the damages done. Audouin also selected, as an object of curiosity, a lady's bridal veil, which had been entirely riddled with holes by the termites. [114] "Note sur les Termites de la Rochelle." _Annales des Sciences Naturelles_, 3e série, tome xx., p. 18. 1853. [115] "Mémoire sur les Termites observés à Rochefort." Saintes, 1843. At La Rochelle these insects took possession of the Prefect's house (built by the brothers Poupet), and of the Arsenal. There they invaded offices, apartments, court, and garden. They could not drive in a stake, or leave a plank in the garden, but it was attacked the next day. One fine morning the archives of the department were found destroyed, without there being the smallest trace of the damage to be seen on the exterior. The termites had mined through the wood-work, pierced the cardboard, eaten up the parchments and the papers of the administration, but had always scrupulously respected the upper leaf and edges of all the leaves. It was by mere chance that a clerk, less superficial than his colleagues, one fine day raised one of the leaves which hid this _detritus_, and thus discovered the destruction of the archives. All the papers of the Prefecture are now shut up in boxes of zinc. These termites do not venture, any more than their congeners, into the light of day. These terrible miners always envelop themselves in obscurity, and construct on all sides covered galleries as they advance into a building. M. Blanchard and M. de Quatrefages saw in La Rochelle the galleries made by them. They are tubes formed of agglutinated material, which are stuck along the walls in the cellars and the apartments, or else suspended to the roof like stalactites. Certain parts of Agen and of Bordeaux begin also to suffer from the ravages of these insects. The danger appears to be imminent.