581 

 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



No. I.— WHITE ANTS' CASTLES. 



Most people have seen sometime or other the large castellated structures 

 built by white ants in the forests, &c., but few, perhaps, know howr quickly 

 the ants can build them. In the course of a stroll along a foreat road a 

 few mornings ago I idly knocked off the top of one of the pinnacles of a 

 white ants' castle and on my return an hour later was surprised to find the 

 damage had been repaired, a flat roof in wet mud having been built across 

 the cavity caused by the loss of the conical top of the pinnacle. 



In order to see how the repairs were executed I knocked off the top of 

 another pinnacle causing a gaping circular chasm about 2| inches in dia.2ieter. 

 On looking inside I saw some half a dozen ants and these at once proceeded 

 down below apparently to give warning of the damage done to the castle. 

 In the space of a minute the white ants came swarming up the inside of the 

 turret, took a preliminary look around, apparently to judge the extent of the 

 damage, and then set to work on the repairs. These were begun at once 

 all round the circumference of the hole, each of the workers bringing 

 up a lump of wet mud apparently two-thirds of which was actually inside its 

 mouth, the lump of mud was disgorged with a distinct effort, sufficient to 

 make it stick where it was placed, and was deftly laid and pressed into place 

 very much as a bricklayer lays bricks. The ant having made sure that the 

 lump he had brought was well and truly laid left without delay to fetch another 

 lump from below, his place being at once taken by another ant who bad 

 scrambled up behind him in all eagerness to add his lump to the growing 

 mass. The operations were carried on rapidly but with no confusion not 

 a single ant failing to lay his contribution properly in place. Occasionally 

 an ant in his eagerness to be off for a fresh lump tripped and fell headlong 

 down below but apparently with no inconveuieiice to himself or any other 

 ant. Twice, however, there were pauses in the progress of the work when only 

 very few ants were left at the scene of operations, and these appeared to be 

 due to a failure in the supply of liquid mud below, as presently the workers 

 came rushing up again in hundreds each with his mouth full. How far 

 down the ants went for their mud, I of course, could not see, nor could I 

 distinguish thom individually to tell how long any of them took to get a fresh 

 supply. The mouth of the cavity was gradually built over from the inside 

 in an ever decreasing circle no attempt being made to rebuild in the original 

 shape of the pinnacle but only to roof over the cavity. The successive 

 layers of mud lumps were welded into each other by continual tramping with 

 the forelegs, and there appeared to be overseers to look after this, who gave 

 a squeeze here and a smooth there without themselves adding any mud. 



When the circle of the aperture had been reduced to about half its 

 original size buttresses were built up along the inner surface of the turret, 

 apparently to act as scaffolding and to afford foothold for the ants 



