TERMITES (WHITE ANTS). 127 



barricading the rearward chambers, have been unable to more effectually dislodge their 

 aggressors. 



As an instance of the highly scientific tactics which the true ants will display 

 when raiding a White Ant colony, Mr. R. C. Hare mentioned to the author that on 

 one occasion, on disturbing a piece of timber infested by termites, so as to expose 

 them to the attacks of the enemy, they proved to consist, to a large extent, of winged 

 nymphs, just on the point of taking flight. Some large black ants that were 

 reconnoitring in the neighbourhood immediately rushed in to take possession, but, 

 instinctively recognising the position of affairs, fell to in the first instance to cut off the 

 wings of all the matured nymphs before attempting to kill or secure a single victim. 



White Ants, Termitidai, of a harmless description, that feed exclusively upon 

 dead or decaying wood, and construct no conspicuous nest, are found as far south as 

 Tasmania in the Australasian system. In November, 1884, when residing at Hobart, 

 the author communicated to the Proceedings of the Royal Society of that colony a 

 brief account of the infusorial parasites that infest the intestines of this Termite. They 

 belonged chiefly to the genera Trichonympha and Pyrsonympha, originally instituted by 

 Dr. Leidy, of Philadelphia, for corresponding parasites of the North American White 

 Ant, Termes flampes, though differing essentially in their specific characters. Other 

 infusorial forms found infesting the Tasmanian Termite were referable to the genus 

 Lophomonas, that had hitherto been recorded as parasites only of the Orthopterous 

 insects Blatta and Gryllotalpa. Figures and full descriptions of the American 

 infusorial parasites are included in Volumes II. and III. of the author's " Manual of 

 the Infusoria," published in 1881-2. An illustration of the more characteristic 

 aspects of the Tasmanian species, upon which the author conferred the title of Tricho- 

 nympha Leidyi, in honour of the founder of the genus, are figured for the first time 

 as a tail-piece to this Chapter. 



The conspicuous features of the species of Trichonympha, as compared with all 

 other known Infusoria, are the remarkable abundance and length of the fine hair-like 

 cilia with which their bodies are clothed, and the remarkable activity and Protean 

 shapes they display or assume in the living state. In the case of the American type, 

 the aspects of these animalcule, as they contort their bodies and fling around their 

 cilia in whirling mazes, have been compared by Dr. Leidy to the flowing of a thin 

 sheet of water over the brim of a fountain, swayed to one side or the other by 

 contending wind currents ; or, again, to dancing nymphs in a spectacular drama, 

 wearing as their chief adornment a cincture of long cords suspended fringewise from 



