frames as he left them, but completely surrounded by an incrustation cemented by the white ants, who had actually eaten up the deal frames and backboards and the greater part of the paper, and left the glasses upheld by the incrustation or covered way which they had formed during their depredations. On the small island of Goree, near Cape Verde, the French naturalist, Adanson, lived in a straw hut, which, though quite new at the time he took up his residence in it, became transparent in many places before the month was out. This might have been endured, but the villanous termites ravaged his trunk, destroyed his books, penetrated into his bed, and at last attacked the naturalist himself. Neither sweet nor salt water, neither vinegar nor corrosive liquids, were able to drive them away, and so Adanson thought it best to abandon the premises, and to look out for another lodging. The ravages of the termites are, however, perhaps more than compensated by their services in removing decayed vegetable substances from the face of the earth, and thus contributing to the purity of the air and the beauty of the landscape. If the forests of the tropical world, where thousands of gigantic trees succumb to the slow ravages of time, or are suddenly prostrated by the hurricane, still appear in all the verdure of perpetual youth, it is chiefly to the unremitting labours of the termites that they are indebted for their freshness. Though belonging to a different order of the insect world, the economy of the termites is very similar to that of the real ants. They also form communities, divided into distinct orders; labourers (larvæ), soldiers (neuters), perfect insects--and they also erect buildings, but of a far more astonishing structure. Several of their species (_T. atrox, bellicosus_ Smeathman) erect high dome-like edifices, rising from the plain, so that at first sight they might be mistaken for the hamlets of the negroes; others (_T. destructor arborum_) build on trees, often at a considerable height above the ground. These sylvan abodes are frequently the size of a hogshead, and are more generally found in the New World. [Illustration: TERMITE HILLS.]