MASONS 93 



in height ; at the end of seven years it is a good hill 

 that is three feet high. After that the increase is 

 very slow — a hill of twenty feet high is probably 

 several hundred years old. The highest hill I have 

 measured, near the Burdekin River, Queensland, 

 was twenty- two feet four inches. Hills of fourteen 

 to eighteen feet are very common, both in Queens- 

 land and in the Port Darwin district. 



" Ant-hills, especially the large and old ones, are 

 generally crowded with parasites, of which the 

 largest are rats and snakes. Whether or not these 

 annoy the ' ants ' I could not ascertain, but the 

 latter are powerless to remove them. Quite large 

 snakes burrow into the -hills, and a multitude of 

 the rats sometimes occupy these mounds, and I 

 suspect prey upon the pupae. ... Of lesser creatures, 

 such as lizards, centipedes, and beetles, the numbers 

 in a hill frequently amount to thousands. All 

 these, without doubt, prey on the Termites and 

 their pupae, and the Termites appear to have no 

 power of retaliation. 



" These insects, invariably called * ants ' by the 

 colonists of the districts where they abound, are 

 one of the most intolerable nuisances of the country. 

 They undermine everything that is constructed of 

 wood, and houses have been known to fall as 

 the result of their burrowing habits, while chairs, 

 tables, and other articles of furniture are often 

 exhibited as curiosities, the arms, legs, etc., being 

 completely hollowed by these destructive insects, 

 and the whole article reduced to a shell scarcely 



