BY WALTER W. FROGGATT. 431 



evident that the fate of the community does not hang upon the 

 prolongation of the gi-avid queen, as it is not at all a difficult 

 matter to replace her with a young and vigorous successor when 

 necessary. 



From my own observations I do not think that the queen of 

 any Australian species either laj^s eggs so rapidly or lives so long. 

 I have on several occasions unearthed a queen in a very sickly 

 looking condition, with her abdomen yellow and wrinkled, and 

 Avith her antennae and most of the tarsi broken oiF, though the 

 nest from wdiich she was taken was swarming wdth life and 

 apparently in the height of prosperity. 



I should not be surprised to find that many of the larger mound 

 nests last for a great number of years, and that white ants may also 

 exist in their nests long after they have destroyed all the woody 

 matter they contain, for in the tropical parts of Australia before 

 the wet season sets in (about the middle of December) they stored 

 food supplies. When examining some of the large rounded 

 termite mounds near King's Sound (N.W. Australia) I found on 

 cutting into them that all the outer galleries w^ere full of bits of 

 grass cut up like fine chaff', wdiich ran out in little streams to the 

 ground as soon as the passages were opened. 



Professor Drummond"^ in his account of African termites pre- 

 viously quoted, notices the immense amount of clay carried up the 

 trunks of trees by these insects, which, he suggests, w^hen it is 

 sw^ept down by the tropical rains and is scattered over the 

 surrounding land is a great agent towards fertilizing the soil, and 

 that termites probably take the place of the earthworms of more 

 temperate regions. This statement requires confirmation, for in 

 the first instance the soil used by the termites is gathered from 

 the surface of tlie ground, and whenever a large mound has been 

 destroyed in this country I have always noticed that nothing 

 grew upon or near it for a long time, Ijut it had a dry, barren 

 appearance as if the clay had been burnt. 



" Drunimond. Tropical Africa, I.e. 



