WHITE ANTS 



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surface of the soil. As soon as it is night, swarms of 

 goat-suckers suddenly make their appearance, wheeling 

 about in a noiseless, ghostly manner, in chase of night- 

 flying insects. They sometimes descend and settle on 

 a low branch, or even on the pathway close to where 

 one is walking, and then squatting down on their heels, 

 are difficult to distinguish from the surrounding soil. 

 One kind (Hydropsalis psalidurus ?) has a long forked 

 tail. In the daytime they are concealed in the wooded 

 ilhas, where I very often saw them crouched and sleeping 

 on the ground in the dense shade. They make no nest, 

 but lay their eggs on the bare ground. Their breeding 

 time is in the rainy season, and fresh eggs are found from 

 December to June. Birds have not one uniform time for 

 nidification here, as in temperate latitudes. Gulls and 

 plovers lay in September, when the sand-banks are ex- 

 posed in mid-river in the dry season. Later in the evening 

 the singular notes of the goat-suckers are heard, one 

 species crying Quao, Quao, another Chuck-co-co-cao ; and 

 these are repeated at intervals far into the night in the 

 most montonous manner. A great number of toads are 

 seen on the bare sandy pathways soon after sunset. One 

 of them was quite a colossus, about seven inches in length 

 and three in height. This big fellow would never move 

 out of the way until we were close to him. If we jerked 

 him out of the path with a stick, he would slowly recover 

 himself, and then turn round to have a good impudent 

 stare. I have counted as many as thirty of these mon- 

 sters within a distance of half a mile. 



The surface of the campos is disfigured in all directions 

 by earthy mounds and conical hillocks, the work of many 

 different species of white ants. Some of these structures 

 are five feet high, and formed of particles of earth worked 

 into a material as hard as stone ; others are smaller, and 

 constructed in a looser manner. The ground is every- 

 where streaked with the narrow covered galleries which 

 are built up by the insects of grains of earth different in 

 colour from the surrounding soil, to protect themselves 

 whilst conveying materials wherewith to build their 

 cities — for such the tumuli may be considered — or carry- 

 ing their young from one hillock to another. The same 

 covered ways are spread over all the dead timber, and 

 about the decaying roots of herbage, which serve as food 



