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healthy trees, others and far the greater number undoubtedly 
do not do so.. J 
The only one I have met with here which is directly fatal to 
living trees is Termcs Gestroi , Wasmann, a very curious species, 
It is a yellowish coloured termite with very powerful overlapping 
curved jaws with sharp points and it is also provided with an 
aperture in its head from which, when annoyed, it can exude a 
white milky liquid. It attacks trees by covering the trunk out 
side with a thick layer of mud from the base to about ten feet 
from the ground destroying the bark and burrowing into the 
wood through weak or dead spots and forming a nest of wood 
fibre inside. I have never seen a tree recover from the attacks 
at this animal although the mud has been repeatedly scraped off 
the injured surfaces tarred or covered with other substances ir. 
jurious to the insects. The workers contrive to cover the tre 
again and again with mud in a very short space of time, and the 
tiee very soon dies. In a large bush of Mimosa sepiaria, which 
was attacked by this insect, or one closely allied to it, the whole 
tree was permeated by their tunnels, and even very small twigs 
when broken were found to have mud carried into them, and it 
was lemaikable that though this was the case the tree outwardly 
completely healthy, covered with leaves and bearing 
flowers and fruits. Specimens found destroying para rubber 
trees have.been sent me lately from Selangor. It was perhaps a 
species allied to T. Gestroi that the Settlement Officer found at- 
tacking the Mango saplings. T. Gestroi however is by no means a 
common species, and seems rather to frequent woods than to 
appear in open ground, as the well known mound building species 
T. Malay anus, Hav. the best known species here does. This 
latter species is the one usually accused of destruction of various 
shrubs and trees, but I have never seen any signs of its ever bit- 
ing living wood or roots. In cases in which roots of grass, orchids 
or trees traverse the nest they are walled out with a layer’ of mud 
and on carefully removing this the roots are seen to be quite un- 
injured. Any one who has examined a dry wood by night and 
noticed the immense abundance of termites running about every- 
where beneath the leaves, would soon come to the conclusion 
that if they did attack living trees or shrubs the forests would bf 
speedily destroyed, yet it is very rare to find a tree that one can 
suspect of being killed by them, as mentioned in a previous bulle- 
tin. T. Malayanus and other dead wood feeders can kill trees 
indirectly by removing dead portions and exposing living por- 
tion to the action of wet, and in other such ways, but this is 
really only hurrying on the death of a diseased tree. The very 
conspicuous black termite, T. hospitalis , which can often be seen 
marching in lines of extraordinary length, the workers bearing 
balls of nibbled bark or dead wood, the soldiers with their heads 
drawn out into sharp beaks, flanking the march, sometimes da- 
mages large trees by making their nests in the forks or between the 
roots, and indirectly producing decay of the tree. The nest which 
is quite exposed is easily cleared away and is not usually rebuilt. 
