80 



the whole of the interior of the tree being more or less filled 

 up with this material." Now, this is typical of the subsidiary 

 nests made in live trees where Termes gestroi is feeding, and it is 

 probably such nests that Robinson explored and described. Robinson 

 found one nest out of many investigated which contained eggs — 

 that is, a parent colony. Personally, I have never found a parent 

 nest in live rubber, although such do occasionally occur in old rubber 

 where surface timber has gradually rotted away. Always the 

 parent nest has been in a log or stump. One might seai^ch long in 

 attacked young rubber trees for a parent colonj^ without success, but 

 if such were found it would only serve further to obscure the general 

 truth. Carey's clue of the logs and stumps was not followed up, and 

 this otherwise valuable report is marred by the failure to provide 

 that most desirable of all information, the location of the main nest. 



In April, 1906, E. P. Stebbing, Forest Zoologist in India, 

 entered the discussion because of specimens sent from Mergui Estate. 

 Stebbing, who, of course, had no first hand knowledge of living Termes 

 gestroi, urged the need for procuring full information upon its life 

 histoi-y. Among points which he indicated as requiring elucidation, 

 there are two of vital importance — namely, " Where do the termites 

 found in the nest in the crown of the root come from in the first 

 instance ?" and " Are there any galleries radiating from the nest to 

 other parts of the plantation ? If so, where do they go ? " Now this 

 is the first consideration of the problem by a trained Economic 

 Entomologist, and it is interesting to note that at once the true 

 line of investigation was suggested. 



In May, 1908, Pratt supplied the material for answering 

 Stebbing's questions in an interim report upon his termite work. 

 Tracing back runways from 15 or 20 eight-year old rubber trees, all 

 of them terminated in a nest, about two feet in diameter, constructed 

 round a buried stump. In this nest was discovei'ed the first 

 authentic queen. Runways ramified from the main nests, broaden- 

 ing out in places to form large open spaces from which branch 

 burrows diverged, the larger of these leading to subsidiary nests 

 inside stumps, logs, and fallen trees. This was indeed an important 

 verification of Carey's statement, and laid the foundation of a 

 rational method of treatment. Pratt pointed out that the age of the 

 rubber, and the nature of the soil had little, if any, effect upon the 

 incidence of the attack, but what really mattered was the presence of 

 timber. The supposed deadly effect of lalang upon Termes gestroi, 

 he rightly ascribed to the genei'al absence of timber on old lalang 

 areas. Further promise of being on the right track at last was given 

 in the following passages : " The most important point in connection 

 with the present abundance of Termes gestroi ... is that it 

 attacks dead as well as living wood . . . The fact that it is among 

 the dead wood, and rapidly multiplying has been ignored. It is only 

 when the rubber trees are being attacked that any measures are 



