OF CERTAIN TERMITE NESTS. 229 



bell jar for a night. The ants carry off the termites, and if 

 the former remain in the comb they may easily be removed by 

 shaking it, or a few may be left in order to prevent the attacks 

 of other insects. (Ecophylla smaragdina, Fabr., lias been em- 

 ployed in this way, but any (true) ant will serve. Myrmecaria 

 brunnea, Saunders, cleared out the termites from combs placed 

 on a sink in the laboratory, entering through the waste pipe 

 from a nest twelve yards away. 



It has not been found possible to develop these stromata 

 further. After three or four weeks they die off. As a rule, 

 however, unless special precautions are taken, cultivation is 

 limited to about fourteen days, for at the end of that time comb 

 and fungi alike are reduced to a mass of excrementitious matter 

 by the larvae of two tineid moths, Opogona flavofasciata , Stt., 

 and an allied species, which appear to be peculiar to termite 

 combs. The culture is resolved into a mass of black pellets. 

 Though the moths are apparently confined to this habitat, it 

 is remarkable that no trace of the larvae or their work has been 

 observed in the nest. 



In order to determine further the nature of these xylarioid 

 structures, and to avoid as far as possible the attacks of the 

 caterpillars, pieces of comb were planted in pots. Several 

 marked differences resulted. The fungi took a much longer 

 time to develop : in general they did not appear above the soil 

 until ten or fourteen days had elapsed, though the pots were 

 kept well watered, and in no case did they grow more than a 

 centimetre high. 



The pot-grown stromata from normally inhabited combs 

 have always been simple and, like other pot-grown forms, have 

 always borne conidia. This production of conidia appears to 

 depend in all cases on the compactness of the stroma : those 

 produced under a bell jar are often loosely built and non- 

 conidiferous. In the present case, the conidiferous hyphae 

 bend out horizontally from the developing column to a length 

 of about 200 /* and form a continuous outer layer. In 

 diameter they vary from 8 to 20 p, most of them increasing 



