The ant-hills and the ground below are filled with an intricate network of tunnels. Professor Drummond tells us that in the elevated plains of Central Africa these ant-hills are mounds ten or fifteen feet high and thirty or forty feet in diameter, and even then the greater part of the ant habitation is underground; and that the amount of reddish-brown earth plastered upon the trees is sufficient to give tone to the landscape. And this he says is the great agricultural process of the tropics, which in temperate zones is accomplished by the earthworm carrying the under soil to the surface, transposing the upper and the lower layers, doing thoroughly what man does rudely with the plough. In the lower plains of West Africa, the white ant is not so abundant, nor the ant-hills nearly so large as those which Professor Drummond saw. Nor is there any such need of them, for the earthworm is common enough. The more numerous ant-hills are two or three feet high and are often shaped like a series of bowls turned upside down one on top of another; but the shape varies. A good way to provide for young chickens is to send a boy to the bush to get an ant-hill, then break off several small pieces at a time and give to the chickens. It will be full of ants, and the happiness of the chickens will be ample reward: there is nothing that they like better. And that reminds me that Schweinfurth, in _The Heart of Africa_, relates that he himself ate white ants in unlimited quantities. He says they are especially good with corn. And then he recommends them as best when they are “partly boiled and partly fried.” I never tried them that way. The most painstaking study and the most elaborate description of the white ant that has ever been made is probably that of Karl Escherich, whose book, _Termitenleben auf Ceylon_, has recently been published. Escherich spent three months in Ceylon studying the white ant. He describes thirty-five species of termite existing in Ceylon. In the nest (the _termetarium_) of many of the species of white ants there are tunnels and chambers devoted to the growing of a certain fungus—real fungus gardens. Sometimes two different species of termite inhabit the same nest, or termites and ants. They live in different galleries which intermingle but never open into each other. If by the breaking of a wall they should come together fierce battles ensue. Sometimes other insects, certain beetles, for instance, live with the termites as guests, to whom they even feed the larvæ. Their presence is probably a protection against their enemies; and they seem to have many. An army of marauding ants will sometimes invade the nest and seek to carry off the occupants.