A NATURAL HISTORY PUZZLE

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5372, 3 September 1904, Page 9

A NATURAL HISTORY PUZZLE

Recently Lieut.-Colonel G. S. M‘D. Elliot, R.E., read a paper before the Royal Geographical Society, London, on the work ■ of the Anglo-French Boundary Commission which has recently been engaged in demarcating the frontier between Northern Nigeria and the French Soudan, in the region stretching; from the Niger to Lake Chad. Colonel Elliot, who was in charge of the British party, pointed out that the frontier region, being an uninteresting and sparsely-inhabited country at the edge of the desert, had n;iturally not been very carefully explored by travellers when there, were so many more attractive and important districts to be visited. Consequently, when the frontier was determined in the AngloFrench Convention of June, 1898, the signatories had to content them selves with defining the boundary on geometrical terms. Except during the rains and for a short time after, the only water in some regions was in deep wells at the villages. As the bush dried up, the larger animals that had come into them for the sake of the fresh grass took their departure for better-watered spots, but there were a certain number of smaller mammals aud birds that lived in the same region the whole year through. The Commission noticed oribi, gazelles, wild cats, certain burrowers aud rodents, guinea-fowl, francolin,' horubills. bustard, various birds of prey and many small birds. The problem of how they managed to exist without water appeared a puzzling one. He -(Colonel Elliot) mentioned this difficulty,, to some French officers, whom he had always found to be very well informed and careful observers. They drew his attention to the fact that there was, even at the end of the dry season, moisture in the leaves and twigs of certain plants, and, further, that it was probable that the bodies of white ants supplied birds with all the' liquid they reqired. These little creatures cover everything they are going to attack with gallaries made out of clay. To moisten this’clay they must have water, which they brought from considerable depths. The officer in charge of the well-sinking along the road from Filing! to Tawa related that white ants had been found 50 metres below the surface in some of the wells. That these small insects should be capable of bringing up all the water they required for their work from depths ‘like this appeared marvellous; but no less so was the existence of the larger animals in a district where for half the year the air was hot and dust-laden, and not a drop of water existed on the surface.