Cuap. V. WHITE ANTS. 105 
they make it probable that these animals are the living representatives, 
albeit somewhat modified, of a group which existed at a former distant 
epoch in the world’s history, and which possessed a structure partaking 
of the characters of the two great orders, Rodentia and Pachydermata, 
now so widely distinct in the majority of their forms. I believe that 
no remains of the order Toxodontia, or of the Rodent family Subungu- 
lati, have been found fossil in any other part of the world besides 
America. In this sort of question it is unsafe to found generalisations 
on negative evidence ; but does not this tend to show that the great 
section of mammals to which the Pachydermata belong had its origin 
on that part of the earth’s surface where South America now stands ? 
On the 16th of January the dry season came abruptly to an end. 
The sea-breezes, which had been increasing in force for some days, 
suddenly ceased, and the atmosphere became misty; at length heavy 
clouds collected where a uniform blue sky had for many weeks 
prevailed, and down came a succession of heavy showers, the first 
of which lasted a whole day and night. This seemed to give a new 
stimulus to animal life. On the first night there was a tremendous 
uproar—tree-frogs, crickets, goat-suckers, and owls all joining to per- 
form a deafening concert. One kind of goat-sucker kept repeating at 
intervals throughout the night a phrase similar to the Portuguese words, 
“Joad corta pao,’—John, cut wood”; a phrase which forms the 
Brazilian name of the bird. An owl in one of the Genipapa trees 
muttered now and then a succession of syllables resembling the word 
‘‘Murucututi.” Sometimes the croaking and hooting of frogs and 
toads were so loud that we could not hear one another’s voices within 
doors. Swarms of dragonflies appeared in the daytime about the pools 
of water created by the rain, and ants and termites came forth in the 
winged state in vast numbers. I noticed that the winged termites, or 
white ants, which came by hundreds to the lamps at night, when 
alighting on the table often jerked off their wings by a voluntary 
movement. On examination I found that the wings were not shed by 
the roots, for a small portion of the stumps remained attached to the 
thorax. The edge of the fracture was in all cases straight, not ruptured: 
there is, in fact, a natura! seam crossing the member towards its root, 
and at this point the long wing naturally drops or is jerked off when the. 
insect has no further use for it. The white ant is endowed with wings 
simply for the purpose of flying away from the colony, peopled by its 
wingless companions, to pair with individuals of the same or other 
colonies, and thus propagate and disseminate its kind. The winged 
individuals are males and females, whilst the great bulk of their wing- 
less fraternity are of no sex, and are restricted to the functions of 
building the nests, nursing and defending the young brood. ‘The two 
sexes mate whilst on the ground after the wings are shed ; and then the 
married couples, if they escape the numerous enemies which lie in wait 
for them, proceed to the task of founding new colonies. Ants and 
white ants have much that is analogous in their modes of life: they 
belong, however, to two widely different orders of insects, strongly 
contrasted in their structure and manner of growth. 
