ANTS AND TERMITES. 401 



over a stream. On examination, you find two lines of ants — one 

 army going towards'the nest, each individual with its leafy burden ; 

 the other running along in the opposite direction much faster and 

 returning to the field of their labours. Whenever an ant dropped 

 his load on the way home, I never noticed him pick it up again ; he 

 invariably turned back and went for a fresh leaf. Thus, in some 

 places, such as a deep wheel-rut, where many ants dropped their 

 burdens in ascending its precipitous sides, there was quite a little 

 heap of leaf fragments. I found that my dog was fond of catching 

 and eating the lemon-scented workers. The nests abound every- 

 where in the campos, and present the spectacle of large heaps of 

 pellets of earth, sometimes many square yards in extent and a 

 couple of feet high. These mounds are formed of the earth 

 excavated from their subterranean galleries, each several pellet 

 having been moulded and carried up in the workers' jaws. I have 

 often watched these energetic insects staggering up with their load 

 to the entrance of their gallery, then running to the edge of the 

 embankment, dropping their burden over the side and gaily 

 returning to their subterranean labour. 



On November 28, 1883, I found a small nest of ants on the 

 branch of a shrub ; it was spherical in shape, about one inch and 

 a half in diameter, and composed of red micaceous earth. 



Neuroptera. 



Termites. — Of all disagreeable-looking insects, I think the 

 soft-bodied, semi-transparent, dirty whitey-grey termite workers are 

 at once the ugliest and the most repulsive. We, fortunately, never 

 suffered much from their depredations, although occasionally in 

 camp we discovered a band of them crossing the floor of our 

 rancho, and found their covered ways, built of a thin crust of 

 red earth up the side of the wall, constructed so as to reach 

 unobserved the object of their attacks ; but as we promptly de- 

 stroyed them and their galleries, I had no opportunity of watch- 

 ing them indoors. Their huge conical parti-coloured nests, which 

 are very abundant, form one of the principal features in the 

 scenery of the highland campos. The general colour is red, but 

 additions are often made in white or grey earth j and as the 

 nest is frequently enlarged, at length the original hemispherical 



2 D 



