4 Queensland Termites. [Sess. 
fastens its hanging home, like a swallow’s nest, on the side 
of some forest tree. 
The Mound - Builder—I mean to dedicate most of the 
following remarks to the mound-builder, which is really the 
white ant par excellence. Although no white ant is guiltless, 
yet this is the great destroyer—this is he who outrivals time 
as the edax rerum. He may fairly be taken as the type of 
the family. 
Tree Termites—Before dismissing these, the habit they 
have of orienting their nests to the northern side—that is, 
to the sunny side—of a tree has been often remarked; and 
in the absence of sun and compass the nest is a sure guide to 
the belated traveller. These hanging termitaries become 
often in course of time the abode of a family of kingfishers 
—say, either Dacelo, the “laughing jackass” of the colonists, 
or that much smaller streak of bright blue, Aleyone azurea. 
It would probably be a safe guess that these birds have 
acquired, with their apartments, a well-stocked larder to boot. 
It would be a mistake to suppose that all kingfishers live 
on fish. 
Other Termites—Besides the two above alluded to, there 
are several other Queensland species: some with visible ter- 
mitaries ; large ones, as in the lofty conical nests on the Cape 
York Peninsula referred to by Saville Kent and many less 
observant travellers; small ones, inconspicuous as a molehill, 
of peculiar masonry ; and unseen ones, the homes of termites 
which lead an obscure, unprolific, and only half social life, and 
whose habits have not yet been put down in books. There is 
also an imported species in Brisbane, which as yet confines its 
depredations to some of the principal streets. 
The Termitary—As I am about to describe a termitary, I 
may say at once that I have never seen in Queensland the 
complicated, composite, and classic architecture figured by 
Houssay, and reproduced in Chambers’s Encyclopedia, as an 
illustration of the interior of a termitary. That figure, how- 
ever, represents the dwelling-place of the famous West African 
termite (Termes bellicosus), and the Queensland species have 
much simpler dwellings. 
I have examined hundreds of termitaries. In the instance 
of the nest I have drawn to accompany this paper (Plate I.), 
