370 HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



to a dwelling-house and adjacent buildings in Illinois has 

 been related by Forbes. It so well describes the injuries 

 sometimes committed by these insects that it is given here 

 in full : 



"A remarkable case of injury to a small dwelling-house, 

 built on an open prairie in Putnam County, was brought 

 to my attention by a letter from H. K. Smith, written 

 April 19, 1886, in which he reported that some insect 

 unknown to him was literally eating up a neighbor's 

 house, granary, etc. Visiting this place, I found that the 

 house (built twenty-one years before) consisted of a small 

 main building resting on a brick foundation, and an addi- 

 tional lean-to, the floor-sills of which were laid upon the 

 ground. About six feet from the house was a so-called 

 cave, built in 1879 and lined with new lumber pine and 

 oak plank the latter of which had been brought from 

 a sawmill about two miles away. Around the yard, 

 passing a few feet from the house, was a post and board 

 fence, and about thirty feet away was a granary with 

 small out-houses near by. 



"The ants were first noticed in 1881, when they were 

 seen to collect on the floor, under a jar which had been 

 left there for several days. In 1884 the wooden walls 

 of the 'cave' broke in, and in 1886 it collapsed com- 

 pletely, all the lumber in it being practically destroyed. 

 The fragments of this wood remaining contained a great 

 number of white ants at the time of my visit. They were 

 also found in several posts of the fence six or eight feet 

 away, but had not visibly affected a young ash-tree about 

 ten feet from the cave. The lean-to, on the other hand, 

 was thoroughly infested by them, the surface of the sills 

 being generally gnawed or riddled to the depth of an inch 



