80 HOW I KILLED THE TIGER. 



great size. On the banks of the Chobe, Dr. 

 Livingstone mentions them as being thirty feet 

 high, and of a base so broad that trees grow on 

 them. In the open fields the injury to produce 

 which they can cause is trifling ; but in gardens, 

 where, as with sugar cane, the crops are long in the 

 ground, much loss is sustained by their attacks. 

 They usually work under cover, and erect galleries 

 of earth, cemented as they progress. In towns, with 

 substantial houses of mortar and beams of wood, 

 the loss which they cause is often very great, for 

 they pierce the walls and tunnel the beams in every 

 direction. The best remedy is to destroy their cells 

 and dig up their queen. Their mounds are 

 tunnelled in every direction, and their queen, a 

 large, shapeless white mass, lies in the centre. An 

 effectual and permanent remedy is to remove the 

 whole mass. To protect the beams, the ends are 

 usually laid on the walls and the sides left unclosed, 

 so that the first approach can be detected, and this 

 opening also prevents dry rot. Teak, ebony, and 

 other hard woods are seldom attacked by white ants. 

 The earth or mud oils, so abundantly produced in 

 Burmah, are the -most effectual known preventatives 

 to their encroaches. The Greeks ate grasshoppers 

 and liked them amazingly ; the aborigines of New 

 South Wales eat them raw, first taking off their 

 wings. The Chinese thriftily eat the chrysalis of 



