266 JOUENAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



WHITE ANT NOTES. 



By C. P. VAN DER Merwe, (Tovernment Entomologist, Durban. 



A CASE of damage to the floors of a building' by a termite ordinarily 

 found inhabiting standing trees was recently brought to the notice of 

 the writer by Mr. W. E. Butcher, of Eidge Hoad, Durban. The 

 termite concerned is known as Schedorhinotermes putorius, Sjostedt, 

 and is fairly common in Durban. This species only exists along the 

 East Coast and has not before been recorded as injuring the wood- 

 work of buildings. Though nests are usually found in hollows of 

 living trees, the insects feed only on the dead wood thereof, and do 

 not attack the live portions. The most common feeding grounds are 

 in the dead wood of trunks and of large limbs from which branches 

 have broken off. The w^hite ants make superficial galleries over the 

 trunk and limbs from one place to another, and also down the trunk 

 to the ground. These galleries are quite characteristic of the insect 

 and made of a carton-like material mixed with particles of soil and 

 other matter. The nearer the ground, the more the soil in the com- 

 position of the material. 



Though these termites are usually found on standing trees, these 

 are not the only places where they occur. The strongest colonies 

 observed by the writer were in dead logs and dead trees. On one 

 occasion a tree in Avhich there was a nest was cut down, and when 

 the wood dried the termites seemed to increase abundantly, probably 

 on account of the ample food supply which had become available. 

 It is possible that the reason why this termite is mainly a tree 

 inhabiting species, is because dead trees and logs do not last long 

 enough on the Natal coast for colonies of this particular white ant 

 to become established in them. Such soon decay or are destroyed by 

 other termites and by fungi. As the species lives in wood, it can 

 have more or less permanent colonies only where its home is not too 

 soon destroyed by other factors. 



Except for the unusual aspect, it is not surprising that 

 Schedorhinotermes should destroy the floor of a house ; but as it differs 

 so much in its habits from other termites to find a building attacked 

 was unexpected. The attack must have started in a way different from 

 the common casea of termite damage. 



First the floor of one large room was found to be infested, and 

 the damaged portions were replaced ; but after some time the floor in 

 an adjoining room was found being attacked. Then it was noticed 

 that the insect concerned was not one of the termites which commonly 

 damage buildings, and specimens were submitted to the writer. 

 Further examination showed that the pest was in the floor and in 

 the moulding of a door in a passage near the rooms first attacked, and 

 had spread to the other side of the wall of the passage, and there 

 started to attack the skirting boards. Subsequent examinations by 

 the writer showed that several feeding places were connected, under 

 the floor, by those characteristic galleries this white ant constructs on 

 the surface of trees. 



