104 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
soldiers, and of these orders the workers are usually present in preponderating 
numbers. An instantaneous photograph taken by the author at Derby, in Western 
Australia, of such a disturbed community, including in the field of view over one 
hundred individuals, is reproduced on the lower half of the page above quoted. The 
species here portrayed two-thirds of life-size represents one of the most destructive 
species in tropical Australia. It erects no mound, but lives in subterranean passages, 
or in chambers excavated in the wood that chiefly constitutes the field of its 
depredations. Among the number delineated, two soldier individuals may be easily 
recognised, in the vicinity of the + marks, by the darker tint of their bodies, and 
more especially by the larger and almost black colour of their heads. By way of 
illustrating the insidious and thorough destruction that is wrought to timber attacked 
by this species of Termite, the writer has in his possession the portion of a dead plank 
taken from an outhouse at the Derby Government Residence, from which the 
specimens here photographed were actually evicted. To all outward appearances the 
plank is perfectly sound and solid. It can, however, be easily crushed to pieces in 
the hand, the entire interior being eaten away, leaving nothing but an external shell 
or veneer of paper-like tenuity. 
It is a common phenomenon to all dwellers in White Ant countries that, at 
that season of the year which, in the tropics, immediately precedes or ushers 
in the rain monsoon, swarms of the winged individuals make their appearance, 
and at night so crowd to all accessible house lights as to constitute a veritable 
nuisance. Of the American species, Termes flavipes, it has been recorded by Hagen 
that, at the swarming season in Massachusetts, these winged Termites form a thick 
cloud, accompanied by no less than fifteen species of birds, which gorge upon the 
insects to such an extent that they are unable to close their beaks. 
These swarming White Ants are in all cases the matured males and females 
developed from the previously described nymphs. Of the countless thousands, or it 
might be said millions, that emerge from the termitaries on these occasions, but a few 
stray units fulfil the main function of their existence and become the parents of new. 
communities ; by some authorities it is even contested whether there are any survivors. 
The advent of the emerging Termite swarms is a day of great rejoicing to the host 
of expectant banqueters that are awaiting to devour them. These include innumer- 
able species of ordinary ants, carnivorous insects generally, spiders, birds, lizards, and 
other animals, and in some countries even man himself. In India, by way of example, 
as testified to in Smeathman’s Memoir, hereafter quoted in eatenso, the swarming 
