The Zoologist — November, 1867. 995 



are to be seen, but the other larger ants seem to take no notice of them. 

 I have never yet found any eggs in a nest. It is said the only way of 

 getting rid of these pests is to take away their queen ; on one occasion, 

 where a very large queen was found in a nest, about eight feet below 

 the surface in a room, this queen was taken away, and the ants all 

 disappeared. In another nest, where I took the queen away, the ants 

 only abandoned a part of their works ; this year they are in the same 

 place as numerous as ever. I have great doubts of the white ant caring 

 for the queen, having found this large maggot in the centre of three 

 nests I have opened out : I believe it is the queen, but who her hus- 

 band is, and why she is some hundred times as big as any of her 

 family, I know not. The queen appears to be blind, able to curl 

 herself round only; the head is shining chesnut-colour, the body dirty 

 white, with six legs near the head, apparently of no use ; the body is 

 in ribs, and has a black line on the back across each division, alto- 

 gether a most repugnant-looking queen, and bearing as little resem- 

 blance to her subjects or offspring as possible. 



Some birds feed on the white ant in its earthly shape, such as 

 partridges, guinea-fowls and chickens, but other birds do not then eat 

 them much ; the acid is too strong. I have seen a woodpecker on a 

 tree covered with these insects, of which he could have caught 

 hundreds, but he took no notice of them, and kept hammering away 

 for some other food. After the first heavy fall of rain, in the rainy 

 season, the white ants come out of their nests by thousands ; they are 

 then furnished with two pair of wings, and are nearly an inch long 

 (the white ant is rather more than a quarter of an inch long in its 

 working state). The ants are all about, helping their winged com- 

 panions out, keeping the hole clear, tugging at a bigger one than 

 usual. This is their swarming time ; yet this term is incorrect, because 

 these insects do not keep together; each one flies off on his own 

 account. I have seen four holes streaming forth one continued line 

 of these winged ants : they began to come forth at 1 1 A. M., and were 

 still doing the same at sunset. This is the time every bird has a feast ; 

 many that usually do not eat insects then devour them : kites, hawks, 

 crows, and the common gray squirrel also make a meal of them. The 

 insect comes out of its hole, with some little difficulty, head first, with 

 a good deal of struggling : its wings are shining and new-looking: 

 when free of the hole it spreads these out, and mounts up into the air 

 straight, and keeps hovering about without any apparent object; those 

 that escape the birds, after flying about for half an hour or so, come 

 back fluttering, with their wings on some little pebble, bit, brick or 



