195 
‘‘Two years later [18GSJ I was presented by the late 33. Walsh, 
in Bock Island, with a copy of the State papers of Illinois which 
were destroyed by the white ants. All the spare copies were stored 
in a closed room, and not looked after for some time; when the 
room was opened all were found in the same condition. I can 
never look upon the volume without being puzzled by the remarka- 
ble fact that the queer little rogues faded to attack the name of 
Tandalia on the top of the pages.” 
This incident has some special interest as affording a plausible 
explanation of the origin of a better known outbreak of these in¬ 
sects in the basement of the present State House at Springfield, 
which came to my knowledge in 1892. From a book given to me 
at that time, taken from the storage room of the Department of 
State, the plate was made which appears as a frontispiece to this 
^My attention was first called to the difficulty by a letter from 
Capf. John M. Adair, Assistant Secretary of State, written July 
15, 1892. “I discovered to-day,” he says, “a colony of white ants 
_so they say they are—in some papers in the basement of the 
State House. I send you a sample of their kind and of their 
work. I want you to tell me what I shall do to destroy them, and 
whether they are liable to spread to other parts of the building. 
# * * If the papers should be removed from the room in which 
they are I want to do this. I do not know how they were intro¬ 
duced. Does the insect thrive in dry places or only in damp? 
These papers are somewhat damp by coming in contact with the 
wall.” 
After a cursory examination of the situation there in September, 
I sent an assistant, Mr. John Marten, to Springfield October 5 and 
again November 10 to investigate the matter. From Mr. Marten’s 
written report, on file in my office, the following account is con¬ 
densed. 
White ants w€re found abundantly infesting collections of papers 
and books stored on wooden shelves in four adjoining rooms in 
the basement of the east wing of the State House, and also in a 
fifth room, separated from the fourth by a hall. In the first room 
visited—that in the extreme southeast corner of this wing—white 
ants were found in papers stored in open tin boxes which had been 
fitted loosely into pigeonholes, one box for each hole. These cases 
had been made about five years before of new pine and poplar ( Lir- 
iodendron tulipifera). The bottom board of each rested upon the 
cement floor, and the backs and ends of the shelving frequently 
touched the stone and brick walls. The ants had evidently made 
their way into the cases at these points of contact, and the top 
and bottom boards were worst eaten out. The ends of the shelves 
were generally honeycombed, and on the surfaces of the boards 
covered ways had frequently been built, where the burrows of the 
insects came to the light. The part of the case worst injured was 
that resting on the floor, where the wood was a trifle moist. Here 
the shelving could easily be crumbled between the fingers. (See 
Plate XIII, Fig. 2.) 
