DAMAGE BY WHITE; ANTS. 203 



in the United States Department of Agriculture, states 

 that " From Baltimore southward, and perhaps a little 

 farther north, this insect becomes a serious pest in houses, 

 particularly in old houses which are rather damp." After 

 describing the tunnels, running with the grain, in old 

 beams and floor joists, he goes on to say : " Quite recent- 

 ly a handsome private residence in Baltimore was found to 

 have its timbers on the first floor reduced almost to shells 

 by the workers of this insect. Further south, not only the 

 buildings, but even the furniture, is destroyed by them in 

 the same way. They seem especiall}^ fond of paper, and 

 Forbes has recorded the fact that a collection of books and 

 papers of the state of Illinois was completely ruined by 

 them. A school library in South Carolina, which had 

 been left closed for the summer, was found, on being 

 opened in the autumn, to be completely eaten out and ren- 

 dered valueless. The work of these insects was brought 

 home strongly to the writer on one occasion when a lot of 

 records and documents stored in a vault in the Department 

 of Agriculture was found to be mined and ruined by them ; 

 and again, the floor of one of the largest sections of the 

 United States National Museum was annually undermined 

 and weakened until it was torn up and replaced with 

 cement." 



The use of furnaces and steam boilers for heating pur- 

 poses has wrought a great change in uniformity of temper- 

 ature in residences and business blocks in New England, 

 artificially producing, in basements at least, something like 

 tropical conditions, and it may be that greater care and 

 w^atchfulness will become necessary in consequence. The 

 white ant, in New England, has heretofore been a well-be- 

 haved and entirely harmless insect, but although its pres- 

 ence in the basement in question was almost certainly in- 

 voluntary, it was able to adapt itself successfully to it§ 

 new environment. 



