104 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



soldiers, and of these orders the workers are usually present in preponderating 

 numbers. An instantaneous photograph taken by the author at Derby, in Western 

 Australia, of such a disturbed community, including in the field of view over one 

 hundred individuals, is reproduced on the lower half of the page above quoted. The 

 species here portrayed two-thirds of life-size represents one of the most destructive 

 species in tropical Australia. It erects no mound, but lives in subterranean passages, 

 or in chambers excavated in the wood that chiefly constitutes the field of its 

 depredations. Among the number delineated, two soldier individuals may be easily 

 recognised, in the vicinity of the + marks, by the darker tint of their bodies, and 

 more especially by the larger and almost black colour of their heads. By way of 

 illustrating the insidious and thorough destruction that is wrought to timber attacked 

 by this species of Termite, the writer has in his possession the portion of a dead plank 

 taken from an outhouse at the Derby Government Residence, from which the 

 specimens here photographed were actually evicted. To all outward appearances the 

 plank is perfectly sound and solid. It can, however, be easily crushed to pieces in 

 the hand, the entire interior being eaten away, leaving nothing but an external shell 

 or veneer of paper-like tenuity. 



It is a common phenomenon to all dwellers in White Ant countries that, at 

 that season of the year which, in the tropics, immediately precedes or ushers 

 in the rain monsoon, swarms of the winged individuals make their appearance, 

 and at night so crowd to all accessible house lights as to constitute a veritable 

 nuisance. Of the American species, Termes flavipes, it has been recorded by Hagen 

 that, at the swarming- season in Massachusetts, these winged Termites form a thick 

 cloud, accompanied by no less than fifteen species of birds, which gorge upon the 

 insects to such an extent that they are unable to close their beaks. 



These swarming White Ants are in all cases the matured males and females 

 developed from the previously described nymphs. Of the countless thousands, or it 

 might be said millions, that emerge from the termitaries on these occasions, but a few 

 stray units fulfil the main function of their existence and become the parents of new 

 communities ; by some authorities it is even contested whether there are any survivors. 

 The advent of the emerging Termite swarms is a day of great rejoicing to the host 

 of expectant banqueters that are awaiting to devour them. These include innumer- 

 able species of ordinary ants, carnivorous insects generally, spiders, birds, lizards, and 

 other animals, and in some countries even man himself. In India, by way of example, 

 as testified to in Smeathman's Memoir, hereafter quoted in extenso, the swarming 



