WHITE ANTS 167 



the outermost of the lower ranges of the Himalaya. 

 The climate is very much cooler than at my last station, 

 and it is also far more moist and damp. As a con- 

 sequence the white ants are proportionately more 

 numerous. They are so numerous that for some time 

 after my arrival they were the chief subjects of my 

 observation, and my diary for that period is almost 

 exclusively occupied with notices regarding them» 

 Such of these notices as appear to me to be sufficiently 

 interesting I will place before the reader. 



On the 1 8th of August I dug up a white ants' nest. 

 It was situated near the edge of a bank ; the digging it 

 open was, therefore, comparatively easy. It contained 

 thirty chambers. Each was about the size and very 

 much the shape of a large sponge ; that is they 

 were round above, while their floors were flat with 

 a slight rising in the centre. They all communi- 

 cated by passages. The passages ran below from the 

 centre of one floor to the centre of the next. Some 

 few of the chambers, however, had second, but smaller, 

 passages. These second passages ran above. The 

 openings into them were in the centre of each roof. 

 The chambers were all tolerably near together, perhaps 

 from one to two feet apart, and they were mostly 

 situated on different levels. The uppermost chamber 

 was not more than twelve inches below the surface, 

 and the lowest about a yard. 



Nearly all the chambers contained combs. Some 

 were fresh and full of eggs, pupae, and young white 

 ants ; others were old, long disused, and dry. They 

 were so dry that on a slight touch they crumbled to 



