OF CERTAIN TERMITE NESTS. 245 



soldiers in special combs destitute of fungi. It has yet to be 

 decided whether the larva? feed themselves, whether there is 

 any production of proctodaeal or storaatodaeal food, or whether 

 there is a constant succession of sexed insects. 



When an inhabited comb is enclosed in a glass vessel, the 

 termites eat off all the spheres and the superficial mycelium, 

 and also the Xylaria as it develops. In the nest they eat 

 the developing agaric and often follows the stalk of the mature 

 form up to the surface. Cultivated plants attacked by fungi 

 are soon discovered by them, and the diseased tissue is eaten 

 away : in fact, the evidence at present to hand seems to 

 indicate that Termes redemanni, Termes obscuriceps, and 

 probably many other species, attack only diseased trees. They 

 undoubtedly prefer wood which has been attacked by fungi. 

 This raises the question whether the change in the wood 

 through the action of the fungi renders it more palatable to 

 the termites, and recalls the popular but most probably erro- 

 neous belief in their partiality for sugar. 



The difference in colour between the larvae on the one hand 

 and the workers and soldiers on the other immediately suggests 

 a difference in food. The former are milky white, while the 

 abdomen of the latter evidently contains brown substances. 

 In the intestine of the worker (Termes redemanni) I have 

 found pieces of wood up to 250 ^ long, fragments of violet- 

 black hyphae, and apparently the oval conidia of the spheres. 

 The latter observation is open to doubt since so many spores 

 of common fungi are of the same size and shape. If the 

 workers eat the spheres, the spherical conidia should also be 

 present in the alimentary canal, but I have failed to find any. 

 In the soldiers I have only found wood and the violet-black 

 hyphae of saprophytic fungi. I was unable to find anything 

 in the intestine of the larvae : the probability that these are 

 fed on proctodaeal or stomatodaeal food seems to have been 

 overlooked. Winged termites (i.e., sexed insects) captured 

 as they left the nest have also been examined : in the pecu- 

 liar intestinal pouch were found the spherical conidia of the 



