T tive, 
1876.] The Probable Danger from White Ants. 405 
flavipes, spreading from the Gulf to the Lakes, and from the At- 
lantic to the westward beyond the Mississippi. This white ant 
seems to be common everywhere; it is very abundant in New 
England, and from my personal observation is to be found 
everywhere around Boston, in its suburbs and in the surrounding 
country, within a radius of ten miles. It lives in old stumps, in - 
dead trees, and in fences, logs, and every kind of rotten wood. 
So far as is known, living trees are not attacked. 
The full-grown insect swarms in June more or less numer- 
ously, and nearly every year local newspapers give some account 
`of an irruption. Curiously enough, and although many observers 
were eager to follow the insects to their nest, till recently none 
had been discovered. Only a few months ago, in the southern 
part of Florida one was found by chance in an old rotten log, — 
and the queen sent to the Cambridge Museum. I have tried to 
discover the nest here since I was invited to come to Cambridge 
by the late Professor Agassiz, and I have repeatedly given serious 
attention to this subject. .But I never succeeded. I beg to 
Mention only one of my experiments. A board which lay about 
twenty steps from the corner of the museum when I arrived, 
eight years ago, was left in the same spot five years for the pur- 
pose of covering wet places in the spring and in the fall. Sud- 
- denly in June, 1872, it proved to be infested and covered with 
thousands of white ants. Of course they must have come through 
the ground, and I tried carefully to discover the passages and 
holes, in order to find a clew to the nest. The whole ground be- 
neath the board and its ‘neighborhood was examined, and the loam 
_. earefully displaced. But no trace was found. I have no doubt 
that Some old stumps in the surrounding estates will be the 
right place, but they are too numerous to enable us to find the 
night one. The only scientific conclusion to be made is that the 
white ants Spread commonly very far around their nest under- 
neath the ground, and appear above as far as possible from the 
Rest. It is very obvious that by this habit the danger is aggra- 
vated, and the remedy, that is, the destruction of the nest, 
ult to apply. i 
My inquiries as to whether there had been observed any mis- 
chief done by white ants here were always answered in the nega- 
ia Only one fact was known. About ten years ago, in a hot- 
T at Salem, the grape-vine was destroyed by them, and 
paly enough in the same way as in Europe, and I am in- 
5. ‘tmed that the sills of houses and decaying trees in that city are 
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