110 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
Monograph for the relegation of individual titles. It is at the same time by no 
means improbable that some of the North Queensland types, more especially, may 
prove to be specifically identical with species obtained from Singapore and the 
Malayan region by Dr. Haviland. The transport of these insects in floating 
driftwood or even by indirect human agency on board intercommunicating trading vessels 
would be easy of accomplishment, and has, as hereafter recorded, actually occurred 
in the case of areas far more remotely separated. 
Various authorities, including Lespes, Quatrefages, Fritz Miiller, and, most 
recently, Drs. Battesta Grassi and Andrea Sandias, have done much towards elucidating 
the domestic economy, and developmental phenomena of the respectively indigenous 
and acclimatised European species Termes lucifugus and Calotermes flavicollis. 
These species, however, are not mound-constructors, but live and breed in 
subterranean chambers and passages, or in galleries excavated within the dead wood 
or standing timber upon which they feed. The destructive powers and propensities 
of these two species have so conspicuously manifested themselves in certain districts in 
Sardinia, Spain, and the South of France as to compel scientific attention, if only with 
the object of checking their depredations. Of the two species mentioned, Calotermes 
Jiavicollis would appear in these countries to concentrate its energies upon the destruction 
of olive and other valuable fruit trees, and Termes lucifugus, in like manner, to devour 
the oaks and fir trees. It is, however, the first-named of these two species that has 
won for itself so wide a notoriety on account of its destructive inroads upon human 
habitations. At Rochefort, La Rochelle, Sainte, and other townships in the department 
of the Lower Charente, the woodwork and furniture of public and private buildings have 
been invaded and destroyed to an enormous extent, and the utmost difficulty has been 
experienced in effectually contending against their ravages. According to the evidence 
submitted in M. Quatrefages’ Memoir on the subject (*), this house-invading Termite 
appears to have been originally imported to La Rochelle with ship’s cargo from 
Saint Domingo, in South America, so long since as the year 1780, and from that 
centre to have been distributed to the neighbouring townships. Termes lucifugus, on the 
other hand, appears to be an indigenous and, excepting for its attacks upon timber in 
the open country, a retiring and relatively harmless species. According to a more recent 
contribution upon this subject written by the late W. S. Dallas in Cassell’s Natural 
* “Rambles of a Naturalist,” Vol. II., p. 346, 1857. 
