TERMITES (WHITE ANTS). 127 
barricading the rearward chambers, have been unable to more effectually dislodge their 
aggressors. 
As an instance of the highly scientific tactics which the true ants will display 
when raiding a White Ant colony, Mr. R. C. Hare mentioned to the author that on 
one occasion, on disturbing a piece of timber infested by termites, so as to expose 
them to the attacks of the enemy, they proved to consist, to a large extent, of winged 
nymphs, just on the point of taking flight. Some large black ants that were 
reconnoitring in the neighbourhood immediately rushed in to take possession, but, 
instinctively recognising the position of affairs, fell to in the first instance to cut off the 
wings of all the matured nymphs before attempting to kill or secure a single victim. 
White Ants, Termitide, of a harmless description, that feed exclusively upon 
dead or decaying wood, and construct no conspicuous nest, are found as far south as 
Tasmania in the Australasian system. In November, 1884, when residing at Hobart, 
the author communicated to the Proceedings of the Royal Society of that colony a 
brief account of the infusorial parasites that infest the intestines of this Termite. They 
belonged chiefly to the genera Trichonympha and Pyrsonympha, originally instituted by 
Dr. Leidy, of Philadelphia, for corresponding parasites of the North American White 
Ant, Termes flavipes, though differing essentially in their specific characters. Other 
infusorial forms found infesting the Tasmanian Termite were referable to the genus 
Lophomonas, that had hitherto been recorded as parasites only of the Orthopterous 
insects Blatta and Gryllotalpa. Figures and full descriptions of the American 
infusorial parasites are included in Volumes II. and III. of the author’s “Manual of 
the Infusoria,’ published in 1881-2. An illustration of the more characteristic 
aspects of the Tasmanian species, upon which the author conferred the title of Tricho- 
nympha Leidyi, in honour of the founder of the genus, are figured for the first time 
as a tail-piece to this Chapter. 
The conspicuous features of the species of Trichonympha, as compared with all 
other known Infusoria, are the remarkable abundance and length of the fine hair-like 
cilia with which their bodies are clothed, and the remarkable activity and Protean 
shapes they display or assume in the living state. In the case of the American type, 
the aspects of these animalcule, as they contort their bodies and fling around their 
cilia in whirling mazes, have been compared by Dr. Leidy to the flowing of a thin 
sheet of water over the brim of a fountain, swayed to one side or the other by 
contending wind currents; or, again, to dancing nymphs in a spectacular drama, 
wearing as their chief adornment a cincture of long cords suspended fringewise from 
