346 AUSTRALIAN NATIVE PLANTS. 
There is a paper in the Proc. R.S., Van Diemen’s Land, 
1852, by Sir W. T. Denison, on “The Operation of TZeredo 
navalis in colonial timber.” He states: ‘The absolute amount 
of the action of the worm in the Harbour of Hobart Town from 
these observations would appear to be equivalent to a reduction of 
one and a half inches in the diameter of a round pile in eight 
years, or at the rate of about one-fifth of an inch per annum.” 
Two species of Eucalyptus are referred to, but their botanical 
names are not given. One is probably Z. g/odulus, and the other 
£. amygdalina. For a return showing the approximate injury 
done by the Zeredo and other sea-worms, to submerged timbers 
within the waters of Victoria, see Report on Indigenous Vegetable 
Substances, Victorian Exhibition, 1861. 
Termites, or White Ants. ‘Next to locusts, they may be 
reckoned the most destructive insects known to man. They live 
in societies, often prodigiously numerous, and, like the bee and 
ant, are composed of three sorts of individuals. In all the stages 
of their existence, save that of the ovum, they are active, carni- 
vorous or omnivorous; and are, beyond all doubt, the greatest 
pest of tropical climates; destroying all articles of furniture made 
of wood, clothes, &c., and even entering the foundations of houses, 
and eating out the whole interior of the timbers, so that while they 
appear perfectly sound externally, they will fall to pieces under 
the slightestblow. . . . The Termites generally make their ap- 
proaches to the nest under ground, descending below the foundations 
of houses and stores at several feet from the surface, and rising again 
either in the floors or entering at the bottoms of the posts of which 
the sides of the buildings are composed, following the course of 
the fibres to the top, and having lateral perforations or cavities 
here and there. While some of them are employed in gutting 
the posts, others ascend from them, entering a rafter or some other 
part of the roof in search, as would seem, of thatch, which appears 
to be their favourite food; and if they find it, they bring up wet 
clay, and build galleries through the roof in various directions, as 
long as it will support them. In this manner a wooden house is 
speedily destroyed; and all that it contains is, at the same time, 
subjected to the ravages of these destructive insects. 
