. Popular science monthly. nurseries and granaries—to which they lead, has to be thrown out upon the surface. And it isfrom these materials that the huge ant-hills are reared which formso distinctive a feature of the African landscape. These heaps andmounds are so conspicuous that they may be seen for miles, and sonumerous are they and so useful as cover to the sportsman, that with-out them in certain districts hunting would be impossible. The firstthings, indeed, to strike the traveler in entering the interior are themounds of the white ant, now dotting the plain in groups like asmall cemeter
. Popular science monthly. nurseries and granaries—to which they lead, has to be thrown out upon the surface. And it isfrom these materials that the huge ant-hills are reared which formso distinctive a feature of the African landscape. These heaps andmounds are so conspicuous that they may be seen for miles, and sonumerous are they and so useful as cover to the sportsman, that with-out them in certain districts hunting would be impossible. The firstthings, indeed, to strike the traveler in entering the interior are themounds of the white ant, now dotting the plain in groups like asmall cemetery, now rising into mounds singly or in clusters, each 746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. thirty or forty feet in diameter, and ten or fifteen in height, or againstanding out against the sky like obelisks, their bare sides carvedand fluted into all sorts of fantastic shapes. In India these ant-heaps seldom attain a height of more than a couple of feet, but inCentral Africa they form veritable hills, and contain many tons of. Fig. 4.—Galleries in White Ants Nest. earth. The brick houses of the Scotch mission-station on Lake Nyassahave all been built out of a single ants nest, and the quarry fromwhich the material has been derived forms a pit beside the settlementsome dozen feet in depth. A supply of bricks as large again couldprobably still be taken from this convenient depot, and the missiona-ries on Lake Tanganyika and onward to Victoria Nyanza have beensimilarly indebted to the labors of the termites. In South Africa theZooloos and Caffres pave all their huts with white-ant earth ; and duringthe Boer war our troops in Praetoria, by scooping out the interior fromthe smaller beehive-shaped ant-heaps, and covering the top with clay,constantly used them as ovens. These ant-heaps may be said to aboundover the whole interior of Africa, and there are three or four distinctvarieties. The most peculiar, as well as the most ornate, is a smallvariety from one to two feet in height, whi
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