white ants of the Mauritius generally build their nests in trees,
where one of them looks like a huge excrescence of the stem. Numerous
covered ways approach it along the branches and up the trunk. Not a
single insect is seen, though thousands may be employed in bringing to
this castle the produce of the tree or the booty they have collected
from the neighbouring country. They have a pale, long-buried look,
caused probably from living so entirely in the dark. When attacking a
house, they run a tunnel with wonderful expedition through the floor and
up a wall, always taking care to have a case of some sort to work in.
If anything particularly tempting to their appetites is discovered, they
immediately branch off to it, and if it is inside a wooden box, or chest
of drawers, or bureau, they take up their abode in the interior till
they have completely gutted it. They think nothing of eating up a
library of books, or cutting out the whole interior of the legs of
tables and chairs, so that, should a stout gentleman sit down on one of
them, he would be instantly floored.

I saw the negro servant who attended me to my bower hunting about in
every direction. I asked him what he was looking for.

"Scorpions, master," was his answer.

Presently he produced from a corner, holding it by the head, what looked
like a spider with a very long tail, which latter adornment was curled
up over his back like that of a squirrel. He put it down close to the
table, when down came its tail with considerable force. He showed me a
sort of claw in the tail, through which the poison, which lies in a bag
at the bottom of it, is projected. I called to the doctor, whose house
was within hail of mine, to come and look at it. He told me that it
belonged to the class _Arachnida_, It had two claws and eight legs, or
stigmata, with a very long tail. He laughed at the common notion that
the scorpion will sting itself to death when surrounded by fire, and
showed how that would be impossible, as he has no muscular power to
drive his sting through his breast-plate, nor could he do much more,
when curling it up, than tickle his back with it. He cannot even twist
his tail to strike, so that the only dangerous point on which to assail
him in his rear.

Cockroaches, of course, abound. They are frequently destroyed by a
peculiar sort of large fly, the female of which lays her eggs in them
while they are alive, the larvae afterwards eating them up.