White Ants 



fall in an incredibly short time. Accounts of damage done in 

 houses, both in Tropical America and in Africa, as well as in 

 British India, occur commonly in the literature. A striking 

 account, however, of damage in Rhodesia occurs in the Zambesi 

 Mission ^^^or^ for January, 1901, written by the Rev. A. Leboeuf, 

 and which is quoted in Nature. " * It is no uncommon thing' 

 says the writer ' for the colonist, on re+urning from his day's 

 labor, to find the coat he left hanging on a nail on his cottage 

 wall and the books on the table absolutely destroyed by these 

 tiny marauders.' Nor is this all. ' On awakening next morning,' 

 writes Mr. Leboeuf, 'you are astonished to see in the dim light 

 a cone-shaped object rising from the brick floor a short distance 

 from your bed, with two holes on the top like the crater of a 

 miniature volcano. Upon closer examination you discover that 

 the holes have just the size and shape of the inside of your boots, 

 which you incautiously left on the brick floor the night before. 

 They have given form and proportion to an ant heap, and nothing 

 is left of them except the nails, eyelets and, maybe, part of the 

 heels.'" 



There are certain insects which belong to the family Embiidae 

 which seem to have a relationship to the termites but their de- 

 tailed consideration may well be omitted from this work, since 

 but a single species is known in North America, namely, Oligo- 

 totna hubbardi Hagen, and which occurs rarely in Florida. 



^60 



