BY WALTER W. FROGGATT. 
425 
On Thursday Island and the many islands round Cape York, 
the same form of nest is met with; turning down into the Gulf 
country and to the watershed of the Flinders River and its 
tributaries, we find one of the most termite-infested localities in the 
world. Nothing is too hard or dry for them; stockyards, fences 
and houses only last for a few years in spite of all precautions; 
a branch is attacked as soon as it is dead, and in many places no 
stumps or dry wood is left in the scrubby forests; everything is 
swept up as it were by these underground gnomes, who as forest 
scavengers do their duty thoroughly. If one cuts some grass for 
a bed and leaves it lying upon the ground for 24 hours, anywhere 
on the lower Flinders, one will find it cut up into line chaff by the 
termites which have come up from the earth beneath, and if one is 
inexperienced enough to leave his blankets on the top of it, he 
will find all the lower folds riddled with holes. Earth scoops and 
carts that had been left in the paddocks for a while at Cambridge 
Downs Station were brought in with the felloes of the wheels 
(hard seasoned timber) gnawed to a shell, while things in the 
store had to be constantly turned over, as they even carried their 
clay up into the cases of soap, jams and meats, which not only 
destroyed the boxes but caused holes to rust in the tins and spoil 
their contents. At a hut on this station where I used to camp, 
the sides were built of upright saplings about six inches in 
diameter; the termites had worked their way up these, reducing 
each to a simple pipe of bark. In the silence of the night I have 
often lain awake listening to the sound of the millions of tiny 
jaws gnawing at these timbers, voices of the night as strange and 
uncanny as one could well imagine. 
Passing from Normanton towards Port Darwin, we are still in 
thickly infested country, and about ten miles out from Palmerston 
are some of the tallest termite nests in the world. I am indebted 
to Mr. N. Holze, the Curator of the Botanic Gardens there, for 
photographs and specimens from these and the magnetic nests, 
which will be dealt with in detail later on, together with the 
species that form them. 
In that portion of North-western Australia stretching across 
from Cambridge Gulf to Roebuck Bay, known as the Kimberley 
