THE WHITE ANT : A THEORY. 743 



they stand, or promenade about, at the mouth of every tunnel, like 

 Sister Ann, 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 Formicidce. Singly or in troops, this rapacious little in- 

 sect, fearless in its chitinous coat-of-mail, charges down the tree-trunk, 

 its antenna? waving defiance to the enemy and its cruel mandibles 

 thirsting for termite blood. The worker white ant is a poor defense- 

 less 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 Goliah 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 attack- 

 ing 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 individuals, there are 

 perhaps two of these fighting-men. The division of labor here is very 

 wonderful, and the fact that besides these two specialized forms there 

 are in every nest two other kinds of the same insect, the kings and 

 queens, shows the remarkable height to which civilization in these com- 

 munities has attained. 



But where is this tunnel going to, and what object have the insects 

 in view in ascending this lofty tree ? Thirty feet from the ground, 

 across innumerable forks, at the end of a long branch are a few feet of 

 dead wood. How the ants know it is there, how they know its sap has 

 dried up, and that it is now fit for the termites' food, is a mystery. 

 Possibly they do not know, and are only prospecting on the chance. 

 The fact that they sometimes make straight for the decaying limb 

 argues in these instances a kind of definite instinct ; but, on the other 

 hand, the fact that in most cases the whole tree, in every branch and 

 limb, is covered with termite-tunnels, would show perhaps that they 

 work most commonly on speculation, while the number of abandoned 

 tunnels, ending on a sound branch in a cul-de-sac, proves how often 

 they must suffer the usual disappointments of all such adventurers. 

 The extent to which these insects carry on their tunneling is quite 

 incredible until one has seen it in nature with his own eyes. The tun- 

 nels are perhaps about the thickness of a small-sized gas-pipe, but there 

 are junctions here and there of large dimensions, and occasionally 

 patches of earth-work are found embracing nearly the whole trunk 

 for some feet. The outside of these tunnels, which are never quite 

 straight, but wander irregularly along stem and branch, resembles in 

 texture a coarse sand-paper ; and the color, although this naturally 

 varies with the soil, is usually a reddish-brown. The quantity of earth 

 and mud plastered over a single tree is often enormous ; and when one 

 thinks that it is not only an isolated specimen here and there that is 

 frescoed in this way, but often the whole of the trees of a forest, some 



