INTESTINAL PROTOZOA OF TERMITES. 185 



their habits in nature, especially the Termitidae, is so limited 

 that it is impossible to adequately discuss their food. 



c. Food Indirect. 



The liquid diet is either a salivary secretion or regurgitated 

 material from the mid-gut. It is very probably the former. It 

 is a colorless and distinctly alkaline liquid which collects on the 

 labrum as a small drop, which may be used either as food for 

 others or for the termite secreting it. Many termites also employ 

 this liquid in building. In Reticulitermes flavipes the young 

 larvae of all the castes and the second and third forms during the 

 third developmental stage feed solely on this liquid diet which 

 they receive from other members of the colony. Later, the larvae 

 of all the castes eat the excreta as it is passed from the anus of 

 the older members of the colony, and it is at this time and in this 

 way that they first become infected with protozoa. The larvae 

 also begin to eat wood at or about the same time that they begin 

 to eat excrement which in this termite is composed of a few 

 wood particles, but primarily of protozoa and liquid. The 

 soldiers, workers and first form reproductive males and females 

 always feed on wood, though they especially the first forms 

 during the third developmental stage partake of a liquid diet 

 as well. The exuvue are usually eaten and, sometimes, the dead 

 bodies of other members of the colony are eaten. 



2. TIIK PROTOZOA. 



Lespes (1856) made the first recorded observation of termite 

 protozoa, though he did not describe them. Leidy (1877 and 

 1881) was the first in America and the second in the world to 

 observe these organisms. In 1881 he gave descriptions of the 

 protozoa which he had observed in Reticulitermes flavipes, 

 creating three genera for them, Trichonympha, Pyrsonympha and 

 Dinenympha. This termite really harbors several other genera, 

 must of which were included in Leidy's drawings as stages in 

 tin- life cycle of the three genera mentioned above. More than a 

 ><<>re of other investigators have studied these protozoa, and to 

 d.ite 41 genera have been described. For a complete account of 

 the work done by all the students of termite protozoa and for a 

 classification of all the protozoa which have been described from 



