15? 
AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 
OF THE 
STRAITS 
AND 
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 
No. 5.] MAY, 1908. [Vol. VI 
NOTES ON TERMES GESTBOI AND OTHER 
SPECIES OF TERMITES FOUND ON RUBBER 
ESTATES IN THE F. M. S. 
By H. E. Pratt. 
General. 
Termites or as they are popularly known “ White Ants ” are 
really very far removed from the true ants, being more nearly allied to 
the primitive insects of this epoch, and resembling ants merely in their 
remarkable social organization. 
Up to the present time some 150 species of Termites have been 
described from various parts of the world, but of these comparatively 
few have been studied with any degree of completeness. That this 
should be so seems mainly attributable to two causes viz : their cryp- 
tic habits, and the multiplicity of individuals and number of castes 
existing among a single species, thus rendering any careful and 
exhaustive observations on their life histories a very long and arduous 
task. 
Considerable knowledge of termite life has been gained since cer- 
tain species came into prominence as pests to agriculture, tea and 
cocoa having suffered considerably in Ceylon and the Philippines respec- 
tively. Besides being destructive to living tissue, termites are deserv- 
edly feared on account of the enormous amount of damage wrought by 
them to wooden structures of almost every description. 
The insidious way in which termites invade houses, riddling the 
planks of the floor, supports to the house and the furniture, and leav- 
ing behind them but a mere outer shell, will be familiar to many of 
those people who have resided in the tropics. 
Besides however being the cause of this destruction they are re- 
sponsible for the advent of a species of small ant (Camponotus, sp.) which 
utilizes the vacated burrows of termites to make its nest, and beconies 
in a very short space of time an unmitigated nuisance in the house. 
