56 HAROLD HEATH. 



500 true royal pairs now in my possession are in excellent con- 

 dition after more than a year of captivity. They are also very 

 abundant in recently killed trees, and it is an easy matter to use 

 these colonies for checking up results. Stripping off the bark of 

 such trees from three to nine months after the swarming period 

 I have found scores, in fact hundreds, of small colonies accom- 

 panied by the royal pair. 



Up to the present time no record has been made of the occur- 

 rence of a true royal pair within the United States. Messrs. 

 Banks and Chittenden have kindly called my attention to a brief 

 note by Hagen 1 to the effect that the late Mr. H. G. Hubbard 

 found the queens of Tcnncs flavipcs in Florida. In this note 

 Hagen remarks that the " females are undeveloped, being wing- 

 less, but sexually mature," which shows that they were substi- 

 tute and not true royal forms. The royalty of such small species 

 as Tcrmcs and Calotermes might easily escape detection, but as 

 Tennopsis is relatively huge and also abundant and widely dis- 

 tributed throughout the Pacific slope it is remarkable that they 

 have not hitherto been discovered. 



For Tennopsis the date of egg-laying and the consequent de- 

 velopment of a colony differs widely according to circum- 

 stances. When the habitat is unusually moist a royal pair may 

 remain together for a year without producing offspring, and, on 

 the other hand, under favorable conditions upwards of 75 young 

 may be developed within this period of time. Usually a fort- 

 night elapses from the time of pairing until the first egg is laid ; 

 and from one to six are deposited daily until the total number 

 amounts from 15 to 30. Egg-laying now ceases and the parents 

 give their time to enlarging the nest or to caring for the eggs 

 which are objects of careful attention, being kept scrupulously 

 clean and frequently shifted from place to place in the nest. 



At the present time my observations are not sufficiently com- 

 plete to justify an extended account of the rate of growth of the 

 developing young, the number of molts they undergo and the 

 origin of the various castes. With the primary royal pair these 

 phenomena are continually subject to a gradual change. For 

 example, early in the life of the colony a large-headed larva 



1 American Naturalist, Vol. 10, 1876, page 62. 



