415 AUSTRALIAN TERMITID.E. Part I. By Walter W. Froggatt. introduction. These notes on white ants were first undertaken with the intention of working out the economic aspect of their life-history, more especially their partiality for certain timbers more than others, and the best methods of exterminating them. There is no family of insects in the warmer and tropical por-tions of the earth's surface whose members wage such ceaseless warfare against man's handiwork. From their countless numbers, subterranean habits, and insidious manner of attack, none are more difficult to cope with; for often it is not until the damage is complete that their presence is even suspected. In Australia alone thousands of pounds worth of property is annually destroyed by these voracious pests. Having started on this subject, I found both material and notes accumulate so rapidly that I determined (without losing sight of the earlier phase of the question) to expand my notes into a more pretentious work, namely, the study of the habits and life-histories of all the Australian species obtainable, recording my observations when possible from living specimens. With this end in view, I obtained the sanction of the Curator of the Technological Museum (Mr. J. H. Maiden), who has also greatly assisted me in many ways at" this work, to print and issue a circular from the Museum, asking for specimens and giving brief instructions to residents of termite-infested country how to collect them. It is from the generous way in which my valued correspondents, many of them personally unknown to me (specimens and notes
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