In the course of my profession I have travelled over a great deal of the 

 white ant infested districts of Australia, both along the coast and in the 

 interior, as well as having a large correspondence with persons in all 



_«'«m 



White Ants Nest [UofiioieitHtj luoicu^^ uuidc iii .i bag ul wheat. 

 Traugie, N.S.W. 



parts of the country when collecting material for the determination of our 

 species. This has since led to many questions and inquiries from brother 

 naturalists interested in the subject in other parts of the world. 



Prehistoric Termites. 



As our fossil fauna in regard to the insect world is very limited and 

 imperfectly known, we have no record of fossil termites; but in the fauna 

 of the Old World they were very well represented, and quite a number have 

 been described from Europe. Many of these. have been obtained in amber 

 (which is supposed to be the gum or resinous exudation of some prehis- 

 toric conifer), into which the fluttering male and female termites in their 

 marriage flight, as they swarmed out of their nests in these ancient forests, 

 fell and were entombed, passing down through the ages, the remains so 

 perfect in every detail that at the present day entomologists are able to 

 accurately describe them. Others fell into soft ooze, which, drying up 

 rapidly, left the imprint of the tiny creatures long after it had hardened 

 into stone. 



In 1848, Professor Heer published his " Ueber fossile ameisen," after- 

 wards translated and published in the " Journal of the Geological Society 



