126 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



porary oven again, a small ant-hill, scientifically excavated, may, in the hands 

 of an experienced bushman, be made to accomplish undreamt-of culinary triumphs. 



The author on one occasion witnessed a rather interesting episode that was 

 enacted in connection with a small mound-shaped termitarium in the southern district 

 of Western Australia. As a rule the Termites utilise the night hours only for the 

 enlargement of their borders, their architectural work of the preceding night being 

 clearly visible in the early morning in the form of a darker semi-dried clay patch on 

 one or more areas of the termitary surface. To effect any such extension of their 

 premises, they have to temporarily break passages through ' the original outer shell, 

 a proceeding which, if done in broad daylight, would doubtless leave them open to 

 the attacks of many enemies. An exceptional case to this general rule observed by the 

 writer was on an afternoon immediately preceding a heavy rainfall, which proved 

 to be the forerunner of continuous wet weather. The Termites apparently possessed 

 an instinctive foreknowledge of the approaching meteorological change, and were deter- 

 mined to make the most of the little dry weather left. Small breaches were 

 consequently being made at innumerable points of the termitary, and the heads of 

 the working individuals were every now and then visible as they arrived with their 

 loads of tempered clay. 



There were other interested watchers of their operations. These were a 

 colony of large red and black ants, from a neighbouring subterranean nest. A number 

 of these insects were continually patrolling the surface of the White Ants' hillock, 

 and every now and then one of them would make a plunge at a scarcely visible 

 opening. Its head and powerful jaws disappeared for a second or two within the 

 clayey matrix, and would then be withdrawn, on most occasions dragging forth in 

 its tenacious grip an unfortunate termite, which was speedily dispatched and borne 

 away by the red ant with as much ease as a terrier could carry off a rat. The 

 true ants, Formicidce, are as a rule very high appreciators of the succulent 

 Termites, or White Ants, as an article of food, and where a colony of the destruc- 

 tive species is found making its depredations, there is scarcely a surer method of 

 getting rid of. these pests than by exposing their galleries and chambers to the 

 inroads of the larger varieties of ordinary ants, which are almost always to be found 

 in the vicinity. It not uncommonly happens, indeed, that termitaria are tenanted 

 partly by termites and partly by ordinary ants. In such instances it may be 

 assumed that the predatory ants have, in the first place, invaded and established 

 a foothold in the White Ants' habitation, from which the latter, while securely 



