126 C. B. THOMPSON AND T. E. SNYDER. 



On August 2, 1915, one of the authors (T. E. S.) received a 

 colony of a termite (Reticulitermes n. sp.) from Ivywild, Colo., 

 found in a scrub white oak, and consisting of workers, soldiers 

 and nymphs. On November 22, 1915, three females with abdo- 

 mens considerably distended and two males with slightly dis- 

 tended abdomens were observed in the nest. These were 

 reproductive individuals of the second form and had grayish and 

 yellow pigmentation in the chitinized parts. While numerous 

 eggs have been found every month in the year in this artificial 

 colony, maintained indoors, and while the number of workers 

 and soldiers has increased, no forms with wing pads or wings 

 have been produced up to December, 1918, after three years of 

 breeding, and the colony is large several hundred members 

 and healthy. The criticism can scarcely be made that there has 

 not been sufficient time for the production of winged forms, for 

 even in recently established incipient colonies in nature the 

 nymphs of the winged reproductive forms are produced after 

 eighteen months. 



Heath (1903) found winged adult termites of Termopsis 

 angusticollis Walker swarming from nests in which males and 

 females of the first form were present, the nests being only two 

 years old and containing two hundred individuals. 



One of the authors (T. E. S.) has made observations on the 

 habits of termites since 1912, mainly in the southeastern United 

 States, but in the season of 1917 during an extensive field trip 

 through Florida, the southwest, the Rocky Mountains and the 

 Pacific Coast regions. It may be stated with certainty that: 

 (i) in long-established colonies, in which large fertilized queens of 

 the second from occurred, no nymphs or winged adults of the 

 first form have been found ; (2) in all colonies in which queens of 

 the third form were found, no nymphs or winged adults of the 

 first form occurred; most of these colonies, however, were all 

 small or young, that is, they had been recently established. 

 In one large colony of R. flavipes in Virginia, with seventeen 

 third form queens present, a few nymphs of the second form were 

 found. Very few males of the third form have yet been found in 

 the genus Reticulitermes, which is possibly due to their resemblance 

 to young nymphs of the reproductive forms or to workers, and 



