A Novel Depredator of the Grape - Vine, 155 



first growth, are cut down, their roots and trunks immediately become the 

 abode of colonies of white ants. They rapidly multiply into countless 

 hosts, and their operations are continued until the stumps are reduced to 

 mere shells.* 



Their food, like that of other species of termites, is rotten and generally 

 moist wood : that they are not, however, limited to this, has been already 

 seen, and may be further proved by facts which I will now mention. 



My particular attention was first called to these ants by winged speci- 

 mens sent me from Salem, in January, i860, by Mr. J. F. Allen, an exten- 

 sive cultivator of hot-house grapes. He asserted that his forcing-houses 

 were completely overrun with ants, of which these specimens were the 

 parents ; and that they were causing serious injury to his vines. I visited 

 the place shortly afterwards, and found that within and beneath every damp 

 piece of wood,, under boxes holding plants, and on the lower surface of 

 thresholds, and bottoms of door-posts, myriads of white ants were swarming; 

 while the sashes above were covered with remains of the winged males, 

 adhering to the glass by means of the moisture continually present. Mr. 

 Allen stated more fully, that, whenever he attempted to "layer" a vine, the 

 portion beyond the layering was sure to droop, and finally die ; and that an 

 examination of the part beneath ground revealed hosts of these ants 

 literally eating up the vine. Not only did they attack layered vines, but 

 three or four healthy, full-grown vines had been destroyed at the roots in 

 the same way. As he could not show me any examples of the kind, I was 

 unable to observe the insects at work, and, notwithstanding these repre- 

 sentations of a careful and interested observer, was inclined to attribute 

 the tme cause of the difficulty to some disease of the vine, supposing that 

 the ants simply carried away the rotten material. But Mr. Allen subse- 

 quently relieved my mind of all doubt upon the subject by sending me 

 the root of a vine destroyed in the way he had described. The whole root 

 had been excavated and chambered through and through : in some places, 

 a mere shell being left ; in others, the shell itself eaten away, and the exca- 

 vations carried unmistakably into the solid, living wood. Cavities and 



• Dr. Fitch has also observed that the white ant lives in society vi'ith, and is nursed and protected by, 

 the common black and red aut {Farmola ru/<i) ; being sometimes found in these nests in greater numbers 

 than the builders and true owners of the hillock. 



