415 



AUSTRALIAN TERMITID.E. 



Part I. 



By Walter W. Froggatt. 



introduction. 



These notes on white ants were first undertaken with the 

 intention of working out the economic aspect of their life-history, 

 more especially their partiality for certain timbers more than 

 others, and the best methods of exterminating them. 



There is no family of insects in the warmer and tropical por- 

 tions of the earth's surface whose members wage such ceaseless 

 warfare against man's handiwork. From their countless numbers, 

 subterranean habits, and insidious manner of attack, none are 

 more difficult to cope with; for often it is not until the damage is 

 complete that their presence is even suspected. In Australia 

 alone thousands of pounds worth of property is annually destroyed 

 by these voracious pests. Having started on this subject, I found 

 both material and notes accumulate so rapidly that I determined 

 (without losing sight of the earlier phase of the question) to 

 expand my notes into a more pretentious work, namely, the study 

 of the habits and life-histories of all the Australian species 

 obtainable, recording my observations when possible from living 

 specimens. 



With this end in view, I obtained the sanction of the Curator 

 of the Technological Museum (Mr. J. H. Maiden), who has also 

 greatly assisted me in many ways at" this work, to print and issue 

 a circular from the Museum, asking for specimens and giving 

 brief instructions to residents of termite-infested country how to 

 collect them. 



It is from the generous way in which my valued correspondents, 

 many of them personally unknown to me (specimens and notes 



