110 



THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



Monograph for the relegation of individual titles. It is at the same time by no 

 means improbable that some of the North Queensland types, more especially, may 

 prove to be specifically identical with species obtained from Singapore and the 

 Malayan region by Dr. Haviland. The transport of these insects in floating 

 driftwood or even by indirect human agency on board intercommunicating trading vessels 

 would be easy of accomplishment, and has, as hereafter recorded, actually occurred 

 in the case of areas far more remotely separated. 



Various authorities, including Lespes, Quatrefages, Fritz Miiller, and, most 



recently, Drs. Battesta Grassi and Andrea Sandias, have done much towards elucidating 



the domestic economy, and developmental phenomena of the respectively indigenous 



and acclimatised European species Termes lucifugus and Calotermes flavicollis. 



These species, however, are not mound- constructors, but live and breed in 



subterranean chambers and passages, or in galleries excavated within the dead wood 



or standing timber upon which they feed. The destructive powers and propensities 



of these two species have so conspicuously manifested themselves in certain districts in 



Sardinia, Spain, and the South of France as to compel scientific attention, if only with 



the object of checking their depredations. Of the two species mentioned, Calotermes 



jlamcollis would appear in these countries to concentrate its energies upon the destruction 



of olive and other valuable fruit trees, and Termes lucifugus, in like manner, to devour 



the oaks and fir trees. It is, however, the first-named of these two species that has 



won for itself so wide a notoriety on account of its destructive inroads upon human 



habitations. At Kochefort, La Rochelle, Sainte, and other townships in the department 



of the Lower Charente, the woodwork and furniture of public and private buildings have 



been invaded and destroyed to an enormous extent, and the utmost difficulty has been 



experienced in effectually contending against their ravages. According to the evidence 



submitted in M. Quatrefages' Memoir on the subject (*), this house-invading Termite 



appears to have been originally imported to La Rochelle with ship's cargo from 



Saint Domingo, in South America, so long since as the year 1780, and from that 



centre to have been distributed to the neighbouring townships. Termes lucifugus, on the 



other hand, appears to be an indigenous and, excepting for its attacks upon timber in 



the open country, a retiring and relatively harmless species. According to a more recent 



contribution upon this subject written by the late W. S. Dallas in Cassell's Natural 



1 Rambles of a Naturalist," Vol. II., p. 346, 1857. 



