92 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 



once found a newly married pair in a fresh cell 

 tended by a few workers " (Bates). 



Thomas Ward, the Australian naturalist, gives 

 us a picture of these erections, and their secondary 

 uses, as he found them in the Port Darwin district. 

 He says : 



" Seven miles beyond the wood we came to a 

 patch of most extraordinary-looking country. It 

 was covered with enormous ant-hills, many of them 

 nearly twenty feet high.. They completely shut 

 off our view of the surrounding country ; and we 

 seemed to be passing through a necropolis of strange 

 tumuli. Many bones were strewn about, the place 

 seeming to be a favourite haunt of the wild dogs, 

 whose monotonous howling we heard both night 

 and day, though we never saw more than five or 

 six of the animals at a time. These ant-hills were, 

 many of them at least, of great age, the sides rutted 

 and seamed deeply, and often covered with a kind 

 of brown, yellow, and reddish lichens. 



" The colonists are fond of remarking that 

 nobody has ever seen a freshly erected ant-hill, and 

 that there is some mystery about their formation. 

 This is simply a popular error. Ant-hills of all 

 sizes may be found where these insects (Termites) 

 abound. They are increased in size so gradually 

 that their growth is not perceptible to the careless 

 eye. By constant watching I have perceived that 

 small hills are thrown up comparatively more 

 quickly than they are afterwards increased in size. 

 In the first year they may be brought up to a foot 



