SWARMING OF THE WHITE ANTS 121 
look as they went about making frantic efforts to 
swallow the insects’ wings. 
If these lizards had possessed a little knowledge of 
natural history they would have deserted the walls and 
made merry on the ground among the termites that 
had already shed their wings. But perhaps it was as 
well for them that they did not, for had they been 
able to devour a whole white ant at a gulp many 
of them would, ere this, have suffered the sad fate of 
the King of England who partook too plentifully of 
lampreys. 
By this morning all the white ants had disappeared 
as mysteriously as they came. Nothing of them was 
left, save a few hundred thousand wings, What has 
become of the owners of these wings? Many were 
devoured by lizards; some fell victims to other enemies; 
a few have lost their wings and apparently their way, 
for they are crawling aimlessly about and are being 
rapidly appropriated by the black ants, which are 
careering along excitedly, looking at each wing they 
pass, to see if perchance it have not a fine succulent 
white ant attached to it. When the black ant does 
alight upon a termite he seizes it with his powerful 
jaws and bears it off in triumph to the nest. But what 
has happened to the termites which have not been 
devoured? Surely all have not perished? These are 
questions to which it is not easy to give a satisfactory 
answer. 
As every one knows, termites are not ants; they are 
totally different insects. They resemble ants only in 
that they are social organisms that live in colonies, of 
