996 The Zoologist — November, 1867. 



stick, and in a few seconds all four wings drop off, and the insect 

 then looks like a brown-barred beetle, and moves about at a consid- 

 erable pace : two are generally together, and one follows the other, in 

 every way conforming to all the movements of the leading one, who 

 goes about right, left, straight ahead, then back all over the ground 

 again, searching very diligently for something, without any success. 

 I have thought that this was a sort of amatory chase, but have seen 

 nothing further take place : without doubt these insects go back into 

 the ground again, for the next day not one is to be seen after a flight. 

 Sometimes these flights take place quite suddenly from the bare face 

 of your room wall, where you had flattered yourself there was not a 

 white ant near; the room becomes so full of them as to be a perfect 

 nuisance ; the candles or lamps are put out by their flying into them, 

 and dinner is obliged to be sent away. 



This insect is one of the pests of India, nothing is safe from it ; it 

 brings down your buildings, when you think they look in first-rate 

 order, eats great holes into your books, which you fancy are dusted 

 every morning (if they had been the ant would not have come) ; 

 it eats your carpet nearly through, which to outward eyes looks all 

 right; destroys your tents, which you hope will be ready for the cold 

 season ; eats up the stock of your gun, if not looked to every day ; 

 honey-combs your shining chunam-floor, as hard as china, and which 

 you think it is impossible for any insect to get through. There 

 appears no cure for this plague ; it does not like sand or saltish earth, 

 and has a great aversion to wood-ashes, which when fresh have the 

 effect of bursting and drying up the white ants ; the potash has some 

 effect on the acid of the insects : the only way to prevent a tent 

 being eaten is to place fresh ashes under the sides. These insects 

 must have direct communication with the ground; thus if you cut off* 

 communication effectually from the ground round a tree attacked by 

 them, the earth-work becomes dry, and the ants dry up also in a few 

 days. Their work is done quickly; if the top of one of their cones is 

 knocked off it will be covered all over again in a few hours: the little 

 workmen begin putting the earth on the sides, and gradually lessen 

 the space until the dome is completed. I have not been able to 

 discover that extraordinary order and arrangement with this species 

 which is quite visible with many other kinds of ants, for the reasons 

 already mentioned ; however, entomologists declare they possess the 

 same habits: how they have found this out seems difficult to know. 



There are several kinds of wood the white ant does not touch, viz., 

 green fir or cedar, dry mahogany, black wood (of which the Bombay 



