5 
papers belonging to the State of Illinois was thoroughly ruined by their 
attacks. A school library in South Carolina, which had been left closed 
for the summer, was found on being opened in the autumn to be com- 
pletely eaten out and rendered valueless. In the Department of Agri- 
culture an accumulation of records and documents stored in a vault not 
perfectly dry, and allowed to remain undisturbed for several years, on 
examination proved to be thoroughly mined and ruined by white ants. 
Humboldt, on the authority of Hagen, accounts for the rarity of old books 
in New Spain by the frequency of the destructive work of these insects. 
Numerous instances of damage to underpinning of buildings and to 
timbers are also on record. The flooring of one of the largest sections 
of the United States National Museum was for some years annually 
undermined and weakened by a very large colony of these pests which 
could not be located, and finally the 
authorities solved the problem by re- 
placing the wood floor with one of 
cement. A few years ago it was found 
necessary to tear down and rebuild 
three frame buildings in Washington 
in consequence of the work of this 
insidious foe, and renewal of founda- 
tion timbers or replacing with arti- 
ficial stone is often called for. 
Damage of the sort mentioned has | 
occurred as far north as Boston, but, ria. 3.—Termes flavipes: a, Newly hatched 
as stated, greatly increases as one ows Heat below cg chee 
approaches the Tropics, where the 
warmth and moisture are especially suited to the development and 
multiplication of this insect. There houses and furniture are never safe 
from attack. The sudden crumbling into masses of dust of chairs, 
desks, or other furniture, and the mining and destruction of collections 
of books and papers, are matters of common experience, very little hint 
of the damage being given by a surface inspection, even when the 
interior of timbers or boards has been thoroughly eaten out, leaving a 
mere shell. 
While confining their work almost solely to moistened or decaying 
timbers or vegetable material of any sort, and books and papers that 
are somewhat moist, termites are known to work also in living trees, 
carrying their mines through the moist and nearly dead heartwood. In 
this way some valuable trees in Boston were so injured as to make 
their removal necessary. In Florida these insects have been the cause of 
considerable damage to newly planted groves of orange trees, working 
around the crowns and in the roots. The damage has been chiefly 
noted in recent clearings where a good deal of rotten wood still remained 
in the soil, this accounting for their presence. These insects are some- 
Aé—12 

