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INDIAN WOOD-DESTEOYING WHITE ANTS 

 (SECOND CONTRIBUTION.) 

 BY 



Joseph Assmuth, S. J. 



The first paper on this subject was published in September 1913 

 (B. N. H. J. Vol. XXII, No. 2, pp. 372—384). Since that time 

 I have made two more long collecting excursions — one to Chota 

 Nagpur during October-November 1913, the other to South Canara 

 and Mysore during April-May 1914 — and several short ones to 

 Gujerat, the Bhor Ghats, etc. They have brought to light some 

 new facts regarding our Indian wood-eating Termites, a summary 

 of which I publish in this paper. I have again to thank most 

 cordially the Agents of the G. I. P., B. B. & 0. I., and M. & S. M. 

 Railways, for their liberal grant of passes without which it would have 

 been impossible to carry on my researches. I am also under great 

 obligations to the Chief Engineer, P. W. D., Sind, and to many 

 members of his staff for sending me a great number of specimens 

 of Termites as well as damaged wood. If this example of co-oper- 

 ation would be more generally imitated by others, our knowledge of 

 Indian noxious White Ants would soon be much nearer completion 

 than it is now. Lastly I beg to tender my heartfelt thanks to all 

 the many others who have in any way assisted me in my studies, 

 especially to the Jesuit Fathers of the Calcutta and Mangalore 

 Missions. 



I propose to give in the following lines short notes first on the 

 noxious Termites alreadj'" mentioned in my preceding paper, then 

 on some new kinds not previously recorded, and finally to add a few 

 general observations bearing on the question of wood-destroyers. 



Leucotermes indicola, OoiDtotermes Hewii (besides one or two other 

 species of this genus), and Odontotermes Feas are " the most im- 

 portant wood-destroyers ; Termites in houses. . .will in a large majoritj' 

 of cases be found to belong to one of these kinds." So I wrote in 

 my first article (1. c, p. 374). I have now, after my latest investi- 

 gations, come to the conclusion that this statement may be more 

 precisely and correctly expressed thus : Termites doing damage in 

 buildings to timber or, in fact, to any wooden structure found in 

 them, belong in all cases to one of the abovenamed kinds, and to no 

 other. I have examined a very large number of Termite-infested 

 habitations in the Provinces of Bombay, Bengal, Madras, Behar 

 and Orissa, and I did not in a single instance come across any but 

 the said three species. 



These Termites are, of course, also seen feeding on all sorts of dry 

 wood awajr from houses and even in forests, just like the rest of the 



