108 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



may crush through the flooring boards, the door posts and lintels may be found 

 hollowed to a shell, and even the legs of the chairs and tables, while apparently 

 sound to the external view, may be so tunnelled interiorly as to crumble into dust 

 with the slightest pressure. 



Australia is commonly alluded to as a land of " contrarieties." In the matter 

 of Ants the scriptural proverb will allow of material modification. The sluggard is 

 therein counselled to "go to the Ant." In Australia a slavish obedience of the 

 prophet's injunction would be altogether a work of supererogation. The Ant, in that 

 happy land, comes to, or goes for, the sluggard ! 



It is commonly supposed that it is the fabricators and inhabitants of the 

 hugh hillocks or termitaria, which are so conspicuous a feature in many tropical 

 districts, that are the authors of the ravages that have been so abundantly attested 

 to. So far, however, as the writer's experiences have extended, this by no means 

 applies to the Australian species. These, as presently shown, differ very materially 

 with relation to the dimensions and contours of the termitaria they construct, 

 but in no instance among the many forms observed and here placed on record 

 were they found to contain that specially destructive variety of Termite whose 

 depredations are so conspicuous throughout the northern territories of Australia. This 

 species, which appears to be closely allied to the Indian Termes taprobanes, is repre- 

 sented by the photograph of a living colony of some hundred individuals, previously 

 referred to, and reproduced on Page 103. This type of White Ant is never found 

 inhabitating any of the several descriptions of termitaries characteristic of the same 

 districts, even though it may infest dead or decaying timber almost in contact with 

 them. These notoriously destructive and essentially wood-eating Termites are, in point 

 of fact, subterranean in their habits, living and breeding in underground galleries, 

 whence they construct mines and tunnels to the immediate scene of their depredations. 

 On the other hand, the huge mound constructors are in Australia, so far as observed 

 by the author, exclusively graminivorous, collecting and hoarding up in their innumerable 

 provision chambers vast stores of finely-cut up grass fibre. 



It is a somewhat singular circumstance that the marked diversity of size, 

 form, and correlated peculiarities that distinguish the habitations of the different 

 species of White Ants throughout the tropical areas of the world's surface, have 

 hitherto received such scant scientific attention. It will further surprise many readers, 

 probably, to learn that up to the present date a paper contributed over a century 

 ago (1781), by Henry Smeathman, to the Transactions of the English Royal Society, 



