16 Annoes to a Rupee."
A. Hamilton, ii. App. pp. 5, 8.
ANT, WHITE, s. The insect (Termes bellicosus of naturalists) not properly an ant, of whose destructive powers there are in India so many disagreeable experiences, and so many marvellous stories. The phrase was perhaps taken up by the English from the Port. formigas branchas, which is in Bluteau's Dict. (1713, iv. 175). But indeed exactly the same expression is used in the 14th century by our medieval authority. It is, we believe, a fact that these insects have been established at Rochelle in France, for a long period, and more recently at St. Helena. They exist also at the Convent of Mt. Sinai, and a species in Queensland.
A.D. c. 250.—It seems probable that Aelian speaks of White Ants.—"But the Indian ants construct a kind of heaped-up dwellings, and these not in depressed or flat positions easily liable to be flooded, but in lofty and elevated positions...."—De Nat. Animal. xvi. cap. 15.
c. 1328.—"Est etiam unum genus parvissimarum formicarum sicut lana albarum, quarum durities dentium tanta est quod etiam ligna rodunt et venas lapidum; et quotquot breviter inveniunt siccum super terram, et pannos laneos, et bombycinos laniant; et faciunt ad modum muri crustam unam de arenâ minutissimâ, ita quod sol non possit eas tangere; et sic remanent coopertae; verum est quod si contingat illam crustam frangi, et solem eas tangere, quam citius moriuntur."—Fr. Jordanus, p. 53.
1679.—"But there is yet a far greater inconvenience in this Country, which proceeds from the infinite number of white Emmets, which though they are but little, have teeth so sharp, that they will eat down a wooden Post in a short time. And if great care be not taken in the places where you lock up your Bales of Silk, in four and twenty hours they will eat through a Bale, as if it had been saw'd in two in the middle."—Tavernier's Tunquin, E. T., p. 11.
1688.—"Here are also abundance of Ants of several sorts, and Wood-lice, called by the English in the East Indies, White Ants."—Dampier, ii. 127.
1713.—"On voit encore des fourmis de plusieurs espèces; la plus pernicieuse est celle que les Européens ont nommé fourmi blanche."—Lettres Edifiantes, xii. 98.
1727.—"He then began to form Projects how to clear Accounts with his Master's Creditors, without putting anything in their Pockets. The first was on 500 chests of Japon Copper ... and they were brought into Account of Profit and Loss, for so much eaten up by the White Ants."—A. Hamilton, ii. 169.
1751.—"... concerning the Organ, we sent for the Revd. Mr. Bellamy, who declared that when Mr. Frankland applied to him for it that he told him that it was not in his power to give it, but wished it was removed from thence, as Mr. Pearson informed him it was eaten up by the White Ants."—Ft. Will. Cons., Aug. 12. In Long, 25.