Australia is rich in ants. There is one specially vicious ant called the bulldog ant, because of its pluck. Try to kill the bulldog ant with a stick, and it will face you and try to bite back until the very last gasp, never thinking of running away. The bulldog ant has a liking for the careless picnicker, whom she--the male ant, like the male bee, is not a worker--bites with a fierce energy that suggests to the victim that his flesh is being torn with red-hot pincers. I have heard it said that but for the fact that Australia is so large an island, a great proportion of its population would by this time have been lost through bounding into the surrounding sea when bitten by bulldog ants. It is wise when out for a picnic in Australia to camp in some spot away from ant-beds, for the ant, being such an industrious creature, seems to take a malicious delight in spoiling the day for pleasure-seekers. In one respect, the ant, unwillingly enough, contributes to the pleasure and amusement of the Australian people. In the dry country it would not be possible to keep grass lawns for tennis. But an excellent substitute has been found in the earth taken from ant-beds. This earth, which has been ground fine by the industrious little insects, makes a beautifully firm tennis-court. It is not possible to leave the ant without mention of the termite, or white ant, which is very common and very mischievous in most parts of Australia. A colony of termites keeps its headquarters underground, and from these headquarters it sends out foraging expeditions to eat up all the wood in the neighbourhood. If you build a house in Australia, you must be very careful indeed that there is no possibility of the termites being able to get to its timbers. Otherwise the joists will be eaten, the floors eaten, even the furniture eaten, and one day everything that is made of wood in the house will collapse. All the mischief, too, will have been concealed until the last moment. A wooden beam will look to be quite sound when really its whole heart has been eaten out by the termites. Nowadays the whole area on which a house is to be raised is covered with cement or with asphalt, and care taken that no timber joists are allowed to touch the earth and thus give entry to the termites. Fortunately, these destructive insects cannot burrow through brick or stone. In the Northern Territory there are everywhere gigantic mounds raised by these termites, long, narrow, high, and always pointing due north and south. You can tell infallibly the points of the compass from the mounds of this white ant, which has been called the "meridian termite."