TERMITES (WHITE ANTS). 117 



making their first voyage through this picturesque strait, it is often suggested in 

 jest, and accepted with exemplary faith, that this area is the site of a native burial 

 ground, and that the ant-mounds represent monuments erected in loving memory of 

 their deceased ancestors. To a new arrival from temperate climes, it is certainly 

 difficult to realise that these remarkable structures are the edifices and tenements of 

 puny insects. 



Writing of this White Ant community in his interesting contribution towards 

 a history of the Australian Termitidse, Mr. W. Froggatt remarks : " At Somerset, 

 Cape York, there is one of the most remarkable termite cities in the world. Viewed 

 from the sea, and looking up beyond the old Government Residency, now occupied 

 by Mr. Frank Jardine's homestead, it appears as if the plain for a mile or more in 

 extent is covered with pointed pillars six or seven feet in height (*), broad at the 

 base and tapering to the summit, forming rather symmetrical pyramids. They are 

 thickly dotted over the plain, often only a few yards apart ; the effect is much 

 heightened if the grass has been recently burnt off, as it had been the first time 

 I passed Somerset/' 



In the absence of a photograph of this remarkable termite community as 

 seen from the most advantageous point, when passing on ship-board through the 

 Albany Pass, the accompanying adaptation of a sketch of it, made by the author on 

 making its first acquaintance in the year 1888, is reproduced in the lower of the two 

 illustrations on the preceding page. 



In contradistinction to the several varieties of White Ant habitations described 

 and illustrated in this Chapter, the York Peninsula type of termitarium above 

 referred to may be most appropriately styled the "Pyramidal." The mounds in this 

 variety are always constructed with a wide base and taper gradually towards the apex. 

 This is usually represented by a single one, but, in the largest hills, may be divided 

 into two or three points. In some instances, as illustrated by the termitary to 

 the right in the corner illustration of page 101, the single apex is prolonged in a 

 columnar fashion. The sides of the larger hills, more especially, are usually very 

 distinctly groined or buttressed, after the manner of the trunks of many of the forest 

 trees in the adjacent scrub. The matured height of these pyramidal termitaries usually 

 ranges from six or eight to ten or twelve feet. The author has, however, seen hills 

 of apparently the same species on the bridle track between Somerset and the Patterson 



* Many of these ant-mounds have an altitude of as much as ten or twelve feet. S.-K. 



